Eye-location dependent vehicular heads-up display system

ABSTRACT

Optimized visual information presentation system and method for a vehicular occupant includes a heads-up display system for generating a virtual display in a field of view of an occupant of the vehicle when facing outward of the vehicle, an occupant sensing system for determining the location of the eyes of the occupant, and a control system coupled to the heads-up display system and the occupant sensing system. The control system controls the location of content of the virtual display being generated by the heads-up display system based on the determined location of the eyes of the occupant by the occupant sensing system.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a:

1. a continuation-in-part (CIP) of U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/413,426 filed Apr. 14, 2003, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,415,126;

2. a continuation-in-part (CIP) of U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/082,739 filed Mar. 17, 2005, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,421,321, which is aCIP of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/701,361 filed Nov. 4, 2003,now U.S. Pat. No. 6,988,026, which is a CIP of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 09/645,709 filed Aug. 24, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,126,583,which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. provisional patentapplication Ser. No. 60/170,973 filed Dec. 15, 1999, now expired; and

3. a CIP of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/428,436 filed Jul. 3,2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,960,626 which is:

-   -   A. a CIP of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/645,709 filed        Aug. 24, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,126,583, which claims        priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. provisional patent        application Ser. No. 60/170,973 filed Dec. 15, 1999, now        expired; and    -   B. a CIP of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/220,139 filed        Sep. 6, 2005, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,103,460, which is a CIP of        U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/120,065 filed May 2, 2005,        now abandoned; and

4. a CIP of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/459,700 filed Jul. 25,2006 now abandoned which is:

-   -   A. a CIP of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/645,709 filed        Aug. 24, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,126,583, which claims        priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. provisional patent        application Ser. No. 60/170,973 filed Dec. 15, 1999, now        expired; and    -   B. a CIP of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/220,139 filed        Sep. 6, 2005, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,103,460, which is a CIP of        U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/120,065 filed May 2, 2005,        now abandoned; and

5. a CIP of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/552,004 filed Oct. 23,2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,920,102 which is a CIP of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 09/645,709 filed Aug. 24, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No.7,126,583, which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S.provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/170,973 filed Dec. 15, 1999,now expired.

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/930,288 filed Aug. 31, 2004, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,164,117, and U.S.patent application Ser. No. 11/924,654 filed Oct. 26, 2007, on thegrounds that they include common subject matter.

All of these applications are incorporated by reference herein.

All of the references, patents and patent applications that arementioned herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety as ifthey had each been set forth herein in full. Note that this applicationis one in a series of applications covering safety and other systems forvehicles and other uses. The disclosure herein goes beyond that neededto support the claims of the particular invention set forth herein. Thisis not to be construed that the inventor is thereby releasing theunclaimed disclosure and subject matter into the public domain. Rather,it is intended that patent applications have been or will be filed tocover all of the subject matter disclosed below and in the currentassignee's granted patents and pending applications. Also, the termsfrequently used below “the invention” or “this invention” are not meantto be construed that there is only one invention being discussed.Instead, when the terms “the invention” or “this invention” are used,they are referring to the particular invention being discussed in theparagraph where the term is used.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to vehicles including a heads-up displaysystem.

The present invention also relates to methods for displaying images oftext and/or graphics to occupants of a vehicle.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A heads-up display system for a driver of a vehicle which is adjustablebased on the position of the driver is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No.5,734,357 (Matsumoto). Prior to Matsumoto, U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,707 andU.S. Pat. No. 5,748,473 disclose a seat adjustment system for adjustinga seat of an occupant viewing images formed by a heads-up display systembased on the position of the occupant (see FIG. 8).

Detailed background on heads-up display systems is found in the parentapplication U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/645,709, now U.S. Pat.No. 7,126,583 and in the parent application U.S. patent application Ser.No. 10/413,426, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,415,126 in particular section 10thereof. Definitions of terms used herein can also be found in theparent applications.

OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide new and improvedadjustable heads-up display arrangements for vehicles.

It is another object of the present invention to provide new andimproved adjustable heads-up display arrangements for vehicles in whichthe orientation of the driver is changed relative to the images beingformed by a heads-up display component of the arrangement, which mayentail either adjusting the seat or adjusting the heads-up displaycomponent.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide new andimproved methods for displaying text and/or graphics to occupants ofvehicles.

Further objects of the present invention will become apparent from thefollowing discussion of preferred embodiments of the invention.

In order to achieve one or more of the objects above, a vehicle with anoptimized visual information presentation system for an occupant inaccordance with the invention includes a heads-up display system forgenerating a virtual display in a field of view of an occupant of thevehicle when facing outward of the vehicle, an occupant sensing systemfor determining the location of the eyes of the occupant, and a controlsystem coupled to the heads-up display system and the occupant sensingsystem for controlling the location of content of the virtual displaybeing generated by the heads-up display system based on the determinedlocation of the eyes of the occupant by the occupant sensing system.

The occupant sensing system may include one or more wave-basedtransducers, each of which transmits waves into an area in which theoccupant is likely situated and receives waves reflected or modified bythe occupant, and a dedicated or common processor for processing thereceived waves into an indication of the location of the eyes of theoccupant. In one embodiment, the occupant sensing system determines thelocation of the occupant's eyes by determining the location of theoccupant's head and inferring the location of the occupant's eyes fromthe location of the occupant's head while assuming the occupant islooking at the virtual display.

The control system can control the heads-up display system to placeimages of objects exterior of the vehicle and potentially unseen by theoccupant in a position in which they would be visible to the occupant ifthe occupant were able to see them. Also, the control system may directthe heads-up display system to place icons representative of objectsexterior of the vehicle into a field of view of the occupant based onthe determined location of the eyes of the occupant. In this regard, avision system maybe provided for determining the location of the objectsexterior of the vehicle. The control system is coupled to the visionsystem to obtain information about the objects exterior of the vehiclefrom the vision system and thereby enable placement of iconsrepresentative of such objects into the field of view of the occupant ina position in which they would appear to the occupant. The controlsystem can also direct the heads-up display system to place informationabout a condition of a lane the vehicle is traveling on into a field ofview of the occupant based on the determined location of the eyes of theoccupant. The control system can also direct the heads-up display systemto place directional arrows or an outline of a path for future travel ofthe vehicle into a field of view of the occupant based on the determinedlocation of the eyes of the occupant.

A method for providing information to an occupant of a compartment of avehicle in accordance with the invention includes generating a virtualdisplay in a field of view of the occupant when facing outward of thevehicle on which information is displayed, determining the location ofthe eyes of the occupant, and controlling the display based on thedetermined location of the occupant's eyes to enable the informationdisplayed on the display to be optimally viewed by the occupant. Thedisplay may be controlled and the eyes of the occupant may be determinedas described above.

Another method for providing information about objects exterior of avehicle to an occupant of a compartment of the vehicle in accordancewith the invention includes arranging a heads-up display in the vehicle,generating a virtual display in a field of view of the occupant whenfacing outward of the vehicle on which information is displayed bycontrolling the heads-up display, determining the location of theobjects exterior of the vehicle, determining the location of the eyes ofthe occupant, and controlling the display based on the determinedlocation of the occupant's eyes to enable the information displayed onthe display to be optimally viewed by the occupant. Control of thedisplay may entail placing images or icons of the objects exterior ofthe vehicle in a position on the virtual display in which they would bevisible to the occupant if the occupant were able to see them, whichposition is based on the determined location of the objects. Otherwise,the display may be controlled and the eyes of the occupant may bedetermined as described above.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The following drawings are illustrative of embodiments of the inventionand are not meant to limit the scope of the invention as encompassed bythe claims.

FIG. 1 shows a seated-state detecting unit in accordance with thepresent invention and the connections between ultrasonic orelectromagnetic sensors, a weight sensor, a reclining angle detectingsensor, a seat track position detecting sensor, a heartbeat sensor, amotion sensor, a neural network, and an airbag system installed within avehicle compartment.

FIG. 1A is an illustration as in FIG. 1 with the replacement of a straingage weight sensor within a cavity within the seat cushion for thebladder weight sensor of FIG. 1.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a vehicle showing the position of theultrasonic or electromagnetic sensors relative to the driver and frontpassenger seats.

FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram of the seated-state detecting unit of thepresent invention.

FIGS. 4( a), 4(b) and 4(c) are each a diagram showing the configurationof the reflected waves of an ultrasonic wave transmitted from eachtransmitter of the ultrasonic sensors toward the passenger seat,obtained within the time that the reflected wave arrives at a receiver,FIG. 4( a) showing an example of the reflected waves obtained when apassenger is in a normal seated-state, FIG. 4( b) showing an example ofthe reflected waves obtained when a passenger is in an abnormalseated-state (where the passenger is seated too close to the instrumentpanel), and FIG. 4( c) showing a transmit pulse.

FIG. 5 is a diagram of the data processing of the reflected waves fromthe ultrasonic or electromagnetic sensors.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the training steps of a neural network.

FIG. 7( a) is an explanatory diagram of a process for normalizing thereflected wave and shows normalized reflected waves.

FIG. 7( b) is a diagram similar to FIG. 7( a) showing a step ofextracting data based on the normalized reflected waves and a step ofweighting the extracted data by employing the data of the seat trackposition detecting sensor, the data of the reclining angle detectingsensor, and the data of the weight sensor.

FIG. 8 is a perspective view of an automatic seat adjustment system,with the seat shown in phantom, with a movable headrest and sensors formeasuring the height of the occupant from the vehicle seat showingmotors for moving the seat and a control circuit connected to thesensors and motors.

FIG. 9 is a perspective view of the seat shown in FIG. 8 with theaddition of a weight sensor shown mounted onto the seat.

FIG. 9A is a view taken along line 9A-9A in FIG. 9.

FIG. 9B is an enlarged view of the section designated 9B in FIG. 9A.

FIG. 9C is a view of another embodiment of a seat with a weight sensorsimilar to the view shown in FIG. 9A.

FIG. 9D is a view of another embodiment of a seat with a weight sensorin which a SAW strain gage is placed on the bottom surface of thecushion.

FIG. 10 is a side plan view of the interior of an automobile, withportions cut away and removed, with two occupant height measuringsensors, one mounted into the headliner above the occupant's head andthe other mounted onto the A-pillar and also showing a seatbeltassociated with the seat wherein the seatbelt has an adjustable upperanchorage point which is automatically adjusted based on the height ofthe occupant.

FIG. 11 is a view of the seat of FIG. 8 showing motors for changing thetilt of seat back and the lumbar support.

FIG. 12 is a view of the seat of FIG. 8 showing a system for changingthe stiffness and the damping of the seat.

FIG. 13 is a view as in FIG. 10 showing a driver and driver seat with anautomatically adjustable steering column and pedal system which isadjusted based on the morphology of the driver.

FIG. 14 is a perspective view of the interior of the passengercompartment of an automobile, with parts cut away and removed, showing avariety of transmitters that can be used in a phased array system.

FIG. 15 is a view similar to FIG. 8 showing the occupant's eyes and theseat adjusted to place the eyes at a particular vertical position forproper viewing through the windshield and rear view mirror.

FIG. 16 is a view similar to FIG. 8 showing an inflated airbag and anarrangement for controlling both the flow of gas into and the flow ofgas out of the airbag during the crash where the determination is madebased on a height sensor located in the headrest and a weight sensor inthe seat.

FIG. 16A is a schematic of part of the arrangement of FIG. 16.

FIG. 17A is a schematic drawing of the basic embodiment of theadjustment system in accordance with the invention.

FIG. 17B is a schematic drawing of another basic embodiment of theadjustment system in accordance with the invention.

FIG. 18 is a perspective view of a one embodiment of an apparatus formeasuring the weight of an occupying item of a seat illustrating weightsensing transducers mounted on a seat control mechanism portion which isattached directly to the seat.

FIG. 19 illustrates a seat structure with the seat cushion and backcushion removed illustrating a three-slide attachment of the seat to thevehicle and preferred mounting locations on the seat structure forstrain measuring weight sensors of an apparatus for measuring the weightof an occupying item of a seat in accordance with the invention.

FIG. 19A illustrates an alternate view of the seat structure transducermounting location taken in the circle A of FIG. 19 with the addition ofa gusset and where the strain gage is mounted onto the gusset.

FIG. 19B illustrates a mounting location for a weight sensing transduceron a centralized transverse support member in an apparatus for measuringthe weight of an occupying item of a seat in accordance with theinvention.

FIGS. 20A, 20B and 20C illustrate three alternate methods of mountingstrain transducers of an apparatus for measuring the weight of anoccupying item of a seat in accordance with the invention onto a tubularseat support structural member.

FIG. 21 illustrates an alternate weight sensing transducer utilizingpressure sensitive transducers.

FIG. 21A illustrates a part of another alternate weight sensing systemfor a seat.

FIG. 22 illustrates an alternate seat structure assembly utilizingstrain transducers.

FIG. 22A is a perspective view of a cantilevered beam type load cell foruse with the weight measurement system of this invention for mountinglocations of FIG. 22, for example.

FIG. 22B is a perspective view of a simply supported beam type load cellfor use with the weight measurement system of this invention as analternate to the cantilevered load cell of FIG. 22A.

FIG. 22C is an enlarged view of the portion designated 22C in FIG. 22B.

FIG. 22D is a perspective view of a tubular load cell for use with theweight measurement system of this invention as an alternate to thecantilevered load cell of FIG. 22A.

FIG. 22E is a perspective view of a torsional beam load cell for usewith the weight measurement apparatus in accordance with the inventionas an alternate to the cantilevered load cell of FIG. 22A.

FIG. 23 is a flow chart of an arrangement for controlling a component inaccordance with the invention.

FIG. 24 is a cross section view of a vehicle with heads-up display andsteering wheel having a touch pad.

FIG. 25 is a view of the front of a passenger compartment of anautomobile with portions cut away and removed showing driver andpassenger heads-up displays and a steering wheel mounted touch pad.

FIG. 26A is a view of a heads-up display shown on a windshield but seenby a driver projected in front of the windshield.

FIGS. 26B-26G show various representative interactive displays that canbe projected on to the heads-up display.

FIG. 27 is a diagram of advantages of small heads-up display projectionscreen such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,473,466.

FIG. 28 is a cross section view of an airbag-equipped steering wheelshowing a touch pad.

FIG. 29 is a front view of a steering wheel having a touch pad arrangedin connection therewith.

FIG. 29A is a cross sectional view of the steering wheel shown in FIG.29 taken along the line 29A-29A of FIG. 29.

FIG. 30 is a front view of an ultrasound-in-a-tube touch pad arranged inconnection with a steering wheel.

FIG. 30A is a cross sectional view of the steering wheel shown in FIG.30 taken along the line 30A-30A of FIG. 30.

FIG. 31 is a front view of a force sensitive touch pad arranged inconnection with a steering wheel.

FIG. 31A is a cross sectional view of the steering wheel shown in FIG.31 taken along the line 31A-31A of FIG. 31.

FIG. 32 is a front view of a capacitance touch pad arranged inconnection with a steering wheel.

FIG. 32A is part of a cross sectional view of the steering wheel shownin FIG. 32 taken along the line 32A-32A of FIG. 32.

FIG. 33 is a front view of a resistance touch pad arranged in connectionwith a steering wheel.

FIG. 33A is a cross sectional view of the steering wheel shown in FIG.33 taken along the line 33A-33A of FIG. 33.

FIG. 34A and FIG. 34B show other interior surfaces where touch pads canbe placed such as on the armrest (FIG. 34A) or projecting out of theinstrument panel (FIG. 34B).

FIG. 35 is a perspective view of an automatic seat adjustment system,with the seat shown in phantom, with a movable headrest and sensors formeasuring the height of the occupant from the vehicle seat showingmotors for moving the seat and a control circuit connected to thesensors and motors.

FIG. 36 illustrates how the adjustment of heads-up display can be doneautomatically.

FIG. 37 is a view of a directional microphone.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to the accompanying drawings wherein like reference numbersdesignate the same or similar elements, FIG. 1 shows a passenger seat 1to which an adjustment apparatus including a seated-state detecting unitaccording to the present invention may be applied. The seat 1 includes ahorizontally situated bottom seat portion 2 and a vertically orientedback portion 3. The seat portion 2 is provided with one or more weightsensors 6 and 7 that determine the weight of the object occupying theseat. The coupled portion between the seated portion 2 and the backportion 3 is provided with a reclining angle detecting sensor 9, whichdetects the tilted angle of the back portion 3 relative to the seatportion 2. The seat portion 2 is provided with a seat trackposition-detecting sensor 10. The seat track position detecting sensor10 fulfills a role of detecting the quantity of movement of the seat 1which is moved from a back reference position, indicated by the dottedchain line. Embedded within the seatback are a heartbeat sensor 31 and amotion sensor 33. Attached to the headliner is a capacitance sensor 32.The seat 1 may be the driver seat, the front passenger seat or any otherseat in a motor vehicle as well as other seats in transportationvehicles or seats in non-transportation applications.

Weight measuring means such as the sensor 6 and 7 are associated withthe seat, e.g., mounted into or below the seat portion 2 or on the seatstructure, for measuring the weight applied onto the seat. The weightmay be zero if no occupying item is present and the sensors areoptionally calibrated to only measure incremental weight. Sensor 6 and 7may represent a plurality of different sensors which measure the weightapplied onto the seat at different portions thereof or for redundancypurposes, e.g., such as by means of an airbag or fluid-filled bladder 5in the seat portion 2. Airbag or bladder 5 may contain a single or aplurality of chambers, each of which is associated with a sensor(transducer) 6 for measuring the pressure in the chamber. Such sensorsmay be in the form of strain, force or pressure sensors which measurethe force or pressure on the seat, a part of the seat or seat back,displacement measuring sensors which measure the displacement of theseat surface or the entire seat such as through the use of strain gagesmounted on the seat structural members, such as 7, or other appropriatelocations, or systems which convert displacement into a pressure whereinone or more pressure sensors can be used as a measure of weight and/orweight distribution. Sensors 7, 76 may be of the types disclosed in U.S.Pat. No. 6,242,701.

As shown in FIG. 2, there are provided four sets of wave-receivingsensor systems 11-14 mounted within the passenger compartment. Each setof sensor systems 11-14 comprises a transmitter and a receiver (or justa receiver in some cases), which may be integrated into a single unit orindividual components separated from one another. In this embodiment,the sensor system 11 is mounted on the upper portion of the frontpillar, A-Pillar, of the vehicle. The sensor system 12 is mounted on theupper portion of the intermediate pillar, B-Pillar. The sensor system 13is mounted on the roof ceiling portion or the headliner (FIG. 2). Thesensor system 14 is mounted near the middle of an instrument panel 17 infront of the driver's seat 16 (FIG. 2). The sensor systems arepreferably ultrasonic or electromagnetic. Although sensor systems 11-14are described as being ultrasonic or electromagnetic sensors, theinvention is equally applicable for other types of sensors (other thanultrasonic or electromagnetic) which will detect the presence of anoccupant from a distance including capacitive or electromagneticsensors. Also, if the sensor systems 11-14 are passive infrared sensors,for example, then they may only comprise a wave-receiver.

The ultrasonic or electromagnetic sensor systems 11-14 are controlled ordriven, one at a time or simultaneously, by an appropriate drivercircuit such as ultrasonic or electromagnetic sensor driver circuit 18shown in FIG. 3. The transmitters of the ultrasonic or electromagneticsensor systems 11-14 transmit respective ultrasonic or electromagneticwaves toward the seat 1 and transmit pulses (see FIG. 4(c)) in sequenceat times t1, t2, t3 and t4 (t4>t3>t2>t1) or simultaneously(t1=t2=t3=t4). The reflected waves of the ultrasonic or electromagneticwaves are received by the receivers ChA-ChD of the ultrasonic orelectromagnetic sensors 11-14. The receiver ChA is associated with theultrasonic or electromagnetic sensor system 13, the receiver ChB isassociated with the ultrasonic or electromagnetic sensor system 14, thereceiver ChC is associated with the ultrasonic or electromagnetic sensorsystem 11, and the receiver ChD is associated with the ultrasonic orelectromagnetic sensor system 12.

The following discussion will apply to the case where ultrasonic sensorsare used although a similar discussion can be presented relative to theuse of electromagnetic sensors such as active infrared sensors, takinginto account the differences in the technologies. Also, the followingdiscussion will relate to an embodiment wherein the seat 1 is the frontpassenger seat. FIGS. 4( a) and 4(b) show examples of the reflectedultrasonic waves USRW that are received by receivers ChA-ChD. FIG. 4( a)shows an example of the reflected wave USRW that is obtained when anadult sits in a normally seated space on the passenger seat 1, whileFIG. 4( b) shows an example of the reflected wave USRW that are obtainedwhen an adult sits in a slouching state (one of the abnormalseated-states) in the passenger seat 1.

In the case of a normally seated passenger, as shown in FIG. 2, thelocation of the ultrasonic sensor system 12 is closest to the passengerA. Therefore, the reflected wave pulse P1 is received earliest aftertransmission by the receiver ChD as shown in FIG. 4( a), and the widthof the reflected wave pulse P1 is larger. Next, the distance from theultrasonic sensor 13 is closer to the passenger A, so a reflected wavepulse P2 is received earlier by the receiver ChA compared with theremaining reflected wave pulses P3 and P4. Since the reflected wavepauses P3 and P4 take more time than the reflected wave pulses P1 and P2to arrive at the receivers ChC and ChB, the reflected wave pulses P3 andP4 are received as the timings shown in FIG. 4( a). More specifically,since it is believed that the distance from the ultrasonic sensor system11 to the passenger A is slightly shorter than the distance from theultrasonic sensor system 14 to the passenger A, the reflected wave pulseP3 is received slightly earlier by the receiver ChC than the reflectedwave pulse P4 is received by the receiver ChB.

In the case where the passenger A is sitting in a slouching state in thepassenger seat 1, the distance between the ultrasonic sensor system 11and the passenger A is shortest. Therefore, the time from transmissionat time t3 to reception is shortest, and the reflected wave pulse P3 isreceived by the receiver ChC, as shown in FIG. 4( b). Next, thedistances between the ultrasonic sensor system 14 and the passenger Abecomes shorter, so the reflected wave pulse P4 is received earlier bythe receiver ChB than the remaining reflected wave pulses P2 and P1.When the distance from the ultrasonic sensor system 13 to the passengerA is compared with that from the ultrasonic sensor system 12 to thepassenger A, the distance from the ultrasonic sensor system 13 to thepassenger A becomes shorter, so the reflected wave pulse P2 is receivedby the receiver ChA first and the reflected wave pulse P1 is thusreceived last by the receiver ChD.

The configurations of the reflected wave pulses P1-P4, the times thatthe reflected wave pulses P1-P4 are received, the sizes of the reflectedwave pulses P1-P4 are varied depending upon the configuration andposition of an object such as a passenger situated on the frontpassenger seat 1. FIGS. 4( a) and (b) merely show examples for thepurpose of description and therefore it is a matter of course that thepresent invention is not limited to these examples.

The outputs of the receivers ChA-ChD, as shown in FIG. 3, are input to aband pass filter 20 through a multiplex circuit 19 which is switched insynchronization with a timing signal from the ultrasonic sensor drivecircuit 18. The band pass filter 20 removes a low frequency wavecomponent from the output signal based on each of the reflected waveUSRW and also removes some of the noise. The output signal based on eachof the reflected wave USRW is passed through the band pass filter 20,then is amplified by an amplifier 21. The amplifier 21 also removes thehigh frequency carrier wave component in each of the reflected USRW andgenerates an envelope wave signal. This envelope wave signal is input toan analog/digital converter (ADC) 22 and digitized as measured data. Themeasured data is input to a processing circuit 23, which is controlledby the timing signal which is in turn output from the ultrasonic sensordrive circuit 18.

The processing circuit 23 collects measured data at intervals of 7 ms(or at another time interval with the time interval also being referredto as a time window or time period), and 47 data points are generatedfor each of the ultrasonic sensor systems 11-14. For each of thesereflected waves USRW, the initial reflected wave portion T1 and the lastreflected wave portion T2 are cut off or removed in each time window.The reason for this will be described when the training procedure of aneural network is described later, and the description is omitted fornow. With this, 32 data points, 31 data points, 37 data points, and 38data points will be sampled by the ultrasonic sensor systems 11, 12, 13and 14, respectively. The reason why the number of data points differsfor each of the ultrasonic sensor systems 11-14 is that the distancefrom the passenger seat 1 to the ultrasonic sensor systems 11-14 differfrom one another.

Each of the measured data is input to a normalization circuit 24 andnormalized. The normalized measured data is input to the neural network25 as wave data.

The output of the weight sensor(s) 6 and 7 is amplified by an amplifier26 coupled to the weight sensor(s) 6 and 7 and the amplified output isinput to the analog/digital converter 27.

The reclining angle detecting sensor 9 and the seat trackposition-detecting sensor 10, which each may comprise a variableresistor, are connected to constant-current circuits, respectively. Aconstant-current is supplied from the constant-current circuit to thereclining angle detecting sensor 9, and the reclining angle detectingsensor 9 converts a change in the resistance value on the tilt of theback portion 3 to a specific voltage. This output voltage is input to ananalog/digital converter 28 as angle data, i.e., representative of theangle between the back portion 3 and the seat portion 2. Similarly, aconstant current is supplied from the constant-current circuit to theseat track position-detecting sensor 10 and the seat track positiondetecting sensor 10 converts a change in the resistance value based onthe track position of the seat portion 2 to a specific voltage. Thisoutput voltage is input to an analog/digital converter 29 as seat trackdata. Thus, the outputs of the reclining angle-detecting sensor 9 andthe seat track position-detecting sensor 10 are input to theanalog/digital converters 28 and 29, respectively. Each digital datavalue from the ADCs 28,29 is input to the neural network 25. Althoughthe digitized data of the weight sensor(s) 6 and 7 is input to theneural network 25, the output of the amplifier 26 is also input to acomparison circuit. The comparison circuit, which is incorporated in thegate circuit algorithm, determines whether or not the weight of anobject on the passenger seat 1 is more than a predetermined weight, suchas 60 lbs., for example. When the weight is more than 60 lbs., thecomparison circuit outputs a logic 1 to the gate circuit to be describedlater. When the weight of the object is less than 60 lbs., a logic 0 isoutput to the gate circuit.

A heartbeat sensor 31 is arranged to detect a heart beat, and themagnitude thereof, of a human occupant of the seat, if such a humanoccupant is present. The output of the heart beat sensor 31 is input tothe neural network 25. The heartbeat sensor 31 may be of the type asdisclosed in McEwan (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,573,012 and 5,766,208 which areincorporated herein in their entirety by reference). The heartbeatsensor 31 can be positioned at any convenient position relative the seat1 where occupancy is being monitored. A preferred location is within thevehicle seatback.

A capacitive sensor 32 is arranged to detect the presence of anoccupying item on the seat 1 and the output thereof is input to theneural network 25. Capacitive sensors appropriate for this function aredisclosed in Kithil (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,602,734, 5,802,479 and 5,844,486which are incorporated herein by reference) and Jinno et al. (U.S. Pat.No. 5,948,031 which is incorporated herein by reference). Capacitivesensors can in general be mounted at locations 11-14 in FIG. 2 or asshown in FIG. 1 or in the vehicle seat and seat back, although by theirnature they can occupy considerably more space than shown in thedrawings.

A motion sensor 33 is arranged to detect motion of an occupying item onthe seat 1 and the output thereof is input to the neural network 25.Motion sensors can utilize a micro-power impulse radar (MIR) system asdisclosed, for example, in McEwan (U.S. Pat. No. 5,361,070, which isincorporated herein by reference), as well as many other patents by thesame inventor. Motion sensing is accomplished by monitoring a particularrange from the sensor as disclosed in that patent. MIR is one form ofradar which has applicability to occupant sensing and can be mounted atlocations such as 11-14 in FIG. 2. It has an advantage over ultrasonicsensors in that data can be acquired at a higher speed and thus themotion of an occupant can be more easily tracked. The ability to obtainreturns over the entire occupancy range is somewhat more difficult thanwith ultrasound resulting in a more expensive system overall. MIR hasadditional advantages in lack of sensitivity to temperature variationand has a comparable resolution to about 40 kHz ultrasound. Resolutioncomparable to higher frequency is feasible but has not beendemonstrated. Additionally, multiple MIR sensors can be used when highspeed tracking of the motion of an occupant during a crash is requiredsince they can be individually pulsed without interfering with eachthrough time division multiplexing.

The neural network 25 recognizes the seated-state of a passenger A bytraining as described in several books on Neural Networks referenced inthe above referenced patents and patent applications. Then, aftertraining the seated-state of the passenger A and developing the neuralnetwork weights, the system is tested. The training procedure and thetest procedure of the neural network 25 will hereafter be described witha flowchart shown in FIG. 6.

As diagrammed in FIG. 6, the first step is to mount the four sets ofultrasonic sensor systems 11-14, the weight sensors 6 and 7, thereclining angle detecting sensor 9, and the seat track positiondetecting sensor 10 into a vehicle (step S1). Next, in order to providedata for the neural network 25 to learn the patterns of seated states,data is recorded for patterns of all possible seated states and a listis maintained recording the seated states for which data was acquired.The data from the sensors/transducers 6, 7, 9-14 and 31-33, for aparticular occupancy of the passenger seat is called a vector (step S2). It should be pointed out that the use of the reclining angledetecting sensor 9, seat track position detecting sensor 10, heart beatsensor 31, capacitive sensor 32 and motion sensor 33 are not essentialto the detecting apparatus and method in accordance with the invention.However, each of these sensors, in combination with any one or more ofthe other sensors enhances the evaluation of the seated-state of theseat.

For the vectors of data, adults and children each with differentpostures, states of windows etc. within the passenger compartment, andoccupied and unoccupied child seats were selected. The selected adultsinclude people with a variety of different physiques such as fat, lean,small, large, tall, short, and glasses wearing persons. The selectedchildren ranged from an infant to a large child (for example, about 14year old). In addition, the selected postures include, for example, asitting state with legs crossed on a seat, a sitting state with legs onan instrument panel, a sitting state while reading a newspaper, a book,or a map, a sitting state while holding a cup of coffee, a cellulartelephone or a dictation machine, and a slouching state with and withoutraised knees. Furthermore, the selected compartment states includevariations in the seat track position, the window-opening amount,headrest position, and varying positions of a sun-visor. Moreover, amultitude of different models of child seats are used in the forwardfacing position and, where appropriate, in a rear facing position. Therange of weights and the corresponding normalized values are as follows:

Class Weight Range Normalized Value Empty Seat  0 to 2.2 lbs.   0 to0.01 Rear Facing Child Seat 2.2 to 60 lbs. 0.01 to 0.27 Forward FacingChild Seat 2.2 to 60 lbs. 0.01 to 0.27 Normal Position Adult 60 lbs andgreater 0.27 to 1  Obviously, other weight ranges may also be used in accordance with theinvention and each weight range may be tailored to specific conditions,such as different vehicles. The output of the weight sensors may notcorrespond directly to be weight ranges in the above table. If forexample strain measuring sensors are placed on each of the vehicle seatsupports, such sensors will also respond to the weight of the seatitself. That weight must therefore the remove so that only theadditional weight of an occupying item is measured. Similarly it may bedesirable to place strain-sensing devices on only some of the vehicleseat support structures. In such cases, the weight of the occupying itemcan be inferred from the output of the strain sensing sensors. This willbe described in greater detail below.

Various vehicle setups were prepared by a combination of thesevariations and, for in this embodiment, almost 500,000 or more vectorsshould be prepared for the patterns to be used as data for the neuralnetwork training.

Next, based on the training data from the reflected waves of theultrasonic sensor systems 11-14 and the other sensors 6, 7, 31-33, thevector data is collected (step S3). Next, the reflected waves P1-P4 aremodified by removing the initial reflected waves from each time windowwith a short reflection time from an object (range gating) (period T1 inFIG. 5) and the last portion of the reflected waves from each timewindow with a long reflection time from an object (period P2 in FIG. 5)(step S4). It is believed that the reflected waves with a shortreflection time from an object is due to cross-talk, that is, waves fromthe transmitters which leaks into each of their associated receiversChA-ChD. It is also believed that the reflected waves with a longreflection time are reflected waves from an object far away from thepassenger seat or from multipath reflections. If these two reflectedwave portions are used as data, they will add noise to the trainingprocess. Therefore, these reflected wave portions are eliminated fromthe data.

Recent advances in transducer design have now permitted the use of asingle transducer acting as both a sender (transmitter) and receiver.These same advances have substantially reduced the ringing of thetransducer after the excitation pulse has been caused to die out towhere targets as close as about 2 inches from the transducer can besensed. Thus, the magnitude of the T1 time period has been substantiallyreduced.

As shown in FIG. 7( a), the measured data is normalized by making thepeaks of the reflected wave pulses P1-P4 equal (step S5). Thiseliminates the effects of different reflectivities of different objectsand people depending on the characteristics of their surfaces such astheir clothing Data from the weight sensor, seat track position sensorand seat reclining angle sensor are also frequently normalized basedtypically on fixed normalization parameters.

The data from the transducers are now also preferably fed through alogarithmic compression circuit that substantially reduces the magnitudeof reflected signals from high reflectivity targets compared to those oflow reflectivity. Additionally, a time gain circuit is used tocompensate for the difference in sonic strength received by thetransducer based on the distance of the reflecting object from thetransducer.

Therefore, the normalized data from the ultrasonic transducers the seattrack position detecting sensor 10, the reclining angle detecting sensor9, from the weight sensor(s) 6 and 7, from the heart beat sensor 31, thecapacitive sensor 32 and the motion sensor 33 are input to the neuralnetwork 25, and the neural network 25 is then trained on this data. Morespecifically, the neural network 25 adds up the normalized data from theultrasonic transducers, from the seat track position detecting sensor10, from the reclining angle detecting sensor 9, from the weightsensor(s) 6 and 7, from the heart beat sensor 31, from the capacitivesensor 32 and from the motion sensor 33 with each data point multipliedby a associated weight according to the conventional neural networkprocess to determine correlation function (step S 6).

In this embodiment, 144 data points are appropriately interconnected at25 connecting points of layer 1, and each data point is mutuallycorrelated through the neural network training and weight determinationprocess. The 144 data points consist of 138 measured data points fromthe ultrasonic transducers, the data (139th) from the seat trackposition detecting sensor 10, the data (140th) from the reclining angledetecting sensor 9, the data (141st) from the weight sensor(s) 6, thedata (142^(nd)) from the heart beat sensor 31, the data (143^(rd)) fromthe capacitive sensor and the data (144^(th)) from the motion sensor.Each of the connecting points of the layer 1 has an appropriatethreshold value, and if the sum of measured data exceeds the thresholdvalue, each of the connecting points will output a signal to theconnecting points of layer 2. Although the weight sensor input is shownas a single input, in general there will be a separate input from eachweight sensor used. For example, if we the seat has four seat supportsand if a strained measuring element is used on each support, what willbe four data inputs to neural network.

The connecting points of the layer 2 comprises 20 points, and the 25connecting points of the layer 1 are appropriately interconnected as theconnecting points of the layer 2. Similarly, each data is mutuallycorrelated through the training process and weight determination asdescribed above and in the above referenced neural network texts. Eachof the 20 connecting points of the layer 2 has an appropriate thresholdvalue, and if the sum of measured data exceeds the threshold value, eachof the connecting points will output a signal to the connecting pointsof layer 3.

The connecting points of the layer 3 comprises 3 points, and theconnecting points of the layer 2 are interconnected at the connectingpoints of the layer 3 so that each data is mutually correlated asdescribed above. If the sum of the outputs of the connecting points oflayer 2 exceeds a threshold value, the connecting points of the latter 3will output Logic values (100), (010), and (001) respectively, forexample.

The threshold value of each connecting point is determined bymultiplying weight coefficients and summing up the results in sequence,and the aforementioned training process is to determine a weightcoefficient Wj so that the threshold value (ai) is a previouslydetermined output.ai=ΣWj·Xj (j=1 to N)

-   -   wherein Wj is the weight coefficient,        -   Xj is the data and        -   N is the number of samples.

Based on this result of the training, the neural network 25 generatesthe weights for the coefficients of the correlation function or thealgorithm (step S 7).

At the time the neural network 25 has learned a suitable number ofpatterns of the training data, the result of the training is tested bythe test data. In the case where the rate of correct answers of theseated-state detecting unit based on this test data is unsatisfactory,the neural network is further trained and the test is repeated. In thisembodiment, the test was performed based on about 600,000 test patterns.When the rate of correct test result answers was at about 98%, thetraining was ended.

The neural network 25 has outputs 25 a, 25 b and 25 c. Each of theoutputs 25 a, 25 b and 25 c outputs a signal of logic 0 or 1 to a gatecircuit or algorithm 30. Based on the signals from the outputs 25 a, 25b and 25 c, any one of these combination (100), (010) and (001) isobtained. In another preferred embodiment, all data for the empty seatwas removed from the training set and the empty seat case was determinedbased on the output of the weight sensor alone. This simplifies theneural network and improves its accuracy.

In this embodiment, the output (001) correspond to a vacant seat, a seatoccupied by an inanimate object or a seat occupied by a pet (VACANT),the output (010) corresponds to a rear facing child seat (RFCS) or anabnormally seated passenger (ASP), and the output (100) corresponds to anormally seated passenger (NSP) or a forward facing child seat (FFCS).

The gate circuit (seated-state evaluation circuit) 30 can be implementedby an electronic circuit or by a computer algorithm by those skilled inthe art and the details will not be presented here. The function of thegate circuit 30 is to remove the ambiguity that sometimes results whenultrasonic sensors and seat position sensors alone are used. Thisambiguity is that it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between arear facing child seat (RFCS) and an abnormally seated passenger (ASP),or between a normally seated passenger (NSP) and a forward facing childseat (FFCS). By the addition of one or more weight sensors in thefunction of acting as a switch when the weight is above or below 60lbs., it has been found that this ambiguity can be eliminated. The gatecircuit therefore takes into account the output of the neural networkand also the weight from the weight sensor(s) as being above or below 60lbs. and thereby separates the two cases just described and results infive discrete outputs.

Thus, the gate circuit 30 fulfills a role of outputting five kinds ofseated-state evaluation signals, based on a combination of three kindsof evaluation signals from the neural network 25 and superimposedinformation from the weight sensor(s). The five seated-state evaluationsignals are input to an airbag deployment determining circuit that ispart of the airbag system and will not be described here. As disclosedin above-referenced patents and patent applications, the output of thissystem can also be used to activate a variety of lights or alarms toindicate to the operator of the vehicle the seated state of thepassenger. The system that has been here described for the passengerside is also applicable for the most part for the driver side.

An alternate and preferred method of accomplishing the functionperformed by the gate circuit is to use a modular neural network. Inthis case, the first level neural network is trained on determiningwhether the seat is occupied or vacant. The input to this neural networkconsists of all of the data points described above. Since the onlyfunction of this neural network is to ascertain occupancy, the accuracyof this neural network is very high. If this neural network determinesthat the seat is not vacant, then the second level neural networkdetermines the occupancy state of the seat.

In this embodiment, although the neural network 25 has been employed asan evaluation circuit, the mapping data of the coefficients of acorrelation function may also be implemented or transferred to amicrocomputer to constitute the valuation circuit (see Step S 8 in FIG.6).

According to the seated-state detecting unit of the present invention,the identification of a vacant seat (VACANT), a rear facing child seat(RFCS), a forward facing child seat (FFCS), a normally seated adultpassenger (NSP), an abnormally seated adult passenger (ASP), can bereliably performed. Based on this identification, it is possible tocontrol a component, system or subsystem in the vehicle. For example, aregulation valve which controls the inflation or deflation of an airbagmay be controlled based on the evaluated identification of the occupantof the seat. This regulation valve may be of the digital or analog type.A digital regulation valve is one that is in either of two states, openor closed. The control of the flow is then accomplished by varying thetime that the valve is open and closed, i.e., the duty cycle.

Moreover, the seated-state detecting unit described above may be used ina component adjustment system and method described below when thepresence of a human being occupying the seat is detected.

The component adjustment system and methods in accordance with theinvention automatically and passively adjust the component based on themorphology of the occupant of the seat. As noted above, the adjustmentsystem may include the seated-state detecting unit described above sothat it will be activated if the seated-state detecting unit detectsthat an adult or child occupant is seated on the seat, i.e., theadjustment system will not operate if the seat is occupied by a childseat, pet or inanimate objects. Obviously, the same system can be usedfor any seat in the vehicle including the driver seat and the passengerseat(s). This adjustment system may incorporate the same components asthe seated-state detecting unit described above, i.e., the samecomponents may constitute a part of both the seated-state detecting unitand the adjustment system, e.g., the weight measuring means.

The adjustment system described herein, although improved over the priorart, will at best be approximate since two people, even if they areidentical in all other respects, may have a different preferred drivingposition or other preferred adjusted component location or orientation.A system that automatically adjusts the component, therefore, must learnfrom its errors. Thus, when a new occupant sits in the vehicle, forexample, the system automatically estimates the best location of thecomponent for that occupant and moves the component to that location,assuming it is not already at the best location. If the occupant changesthe location, the system must remember that change and incorporate itinto the adjustment the next time that person enters the vehicle and isseated in the same seat. Therefore, the system need not make a perfectselection the first time but it must remember the person and theposition the component was in for that person. The system, therefore,makes one, two or three measurements of morphological characteristics ofthe occupant and then adjusts the component based on an algorithm. Theoccupant will correct the adjustment and the next time that the systemmeasures the same measurements for those measurement characteristics, itwill set the component to the corrected position. As such, preferredcomponents for which the system in accordance with the invention is mostuseful are those which affect a driver of the vehicle and relate to thesensory abilities of the driver, i.e., the mirrors, the seat, thesteering wheel and steering column and accelerator, clutch and brakepedals.

The first characteristic used is a measurement of the height of theoccupant from the vehicle seat. This can be done by a sensor in theceiling of the vehicle but this becomes difficult since, even for thesame seat location, the head of the occupant will not be at the sameangle with respect to the seat and therefore the angle to aceiling-mounted sensor is in general unknown at least as long as onlyone ceiling mounted sensor is used. This problem can be solved if two orthree sensors are used as described below. The simplest implementationis to place the sensor in the seat. In the '320 patent mentioned above,a rear impact occupant protection apparatus is disclosed which usessensors mounted within the headrest. This same system can also be usedto measure the height of the occupant from the seat and thus, for noadditional cost assuming the rear impact occupant protection systemdescribed in the '320 patent is provided, the first measure of theoccupant's morphology can be achieved. For some applications, this maybe sufficient since it is unlikely that two operators will use thevehicle that have the same height. For other implementations, one ormore additional measurements are used.

Referring now to FIG. 8, an automatic adjustment system for adjusting aseat (which is being used only as an example of a vehicle component) isshown generally at 100 with a movable headrest 111 and ultrasonic sensor120 and ultrasonic receiver 121 for measuring the height of the occupantof the seat. Power means such as motors 191, 192, and 193 connected tothe seat for moving the base of the seat, control means such as acontrol circuit, system or module 150 connected to the motors and aheadrest actuation mechanism using servomotors 160 and 170, which may beservomotors, are also illustrated. The seat 110 and headrest 111 areshown in phantom. Vertical motion of the headrest 111 is accomplishedwhen a signal is sent from control module 150 to servomotor 160 througha wire 131. Servomotor 160 rotates lead screw 162 which engages with athreaded hole in member 164 causing it to move up or down depending onthe direction of rotation of the lead screw 162. Headrest support rods165 and 166 are attached to member 164 and cause the headrest 111 totranslate up or down with member 164. In this manner, the verticalposition of the headrest can be controlled as depicted by arrow A-A.Ultrasonic transmitter and receiver 120,121 may be replaced by otherappropriate wave-generating and receiving devices, such aselectromagnetic, active infrared transmitters and receivers.

Wire 132 leads from control module 150 to servomotor 170 which rotateslead screw 172. Lead screw 172 engages with a threaded hole in shaft 173which is attached to supporting structures within the seat shown inphantom. The rotation of lead screw 172 rotates servo motor support 161,upon which servomotor 160 is situated, which in turn rotates headrestsupport rods 165 and 166 in slots 168 and 169 in the seat 110. Rotationof the servomotor support 161 is facilitated by a rod 171 upon which theservo motor support 161 is positioned. In this manner, the headrest 111is caused to move in the fore and aft direction as depicted by arrowB-B. There are other designs which accomplish the same effect in movingthe headrest up and down and fore and aft.

The operation of the system is as follows. When an adult or childoccupant is seated on a seat containing the headrest and control systemdescribed above as determined by the neural network 25, the ultrasonictransmitter 120 emits ultrasonic energy which reflects off of the headof the occupant and is received by receiver 121. An electronic circuitin control module 150 contains a microprocessor which determines thedistance from the head of the occupant based on the time between thetransmission and reception of an ultrasonic pulse. Control module 150may be within the same microprocessor as neural network 25 or separatetherefrom. The headrest 111 moves up and down until it finds the top ofthe head and then the vertical position closest to the head of theoccupant and then remains at that position. Based on the time delaybetween transmission and reception of an ultrasonic pulse, the systemcan also determine the longitudinal distance from the headrest to theoccupant's head. Since the head may not be located precisely in linewith the ultrasonic sensors, or the occupant may be wearing a hat, coatwith a high collar, or may have a large hairdo, there may be some errorin this longitudinal measurement.

When an occupant sits on seat 110, the headrest 111 moves to find thetop of the occupant's head as discussed above. This is accomplishedusing an algorithm and a microprocessor which is part of control circuit150. The headrest 111 then moves to the optimum location for rear impactprotection as described in the above referenced '320 patent. Once theheight of the occupant has been measured, another algorithm in themicroprocessor in control circuit 150 compares the occupant's measuredheight with a table representing the population as a whole and from thistable, the appropriate positions for the seat corresponding to theoccupant's height is selected. For example, if the occupant measured 33inches from the top of the seat bottom, this might correspond to a 85%human, depending on the particular seat and statistical tables of humanmeasurements.

Careful study of each particular vehicle model provides the data for thetable of the location of the seat to properly position the eyes of theoccupant within the “eye-ellipse”, the steering wheel within acomfortable reach of the occupant's hands and the pedals within acomfortable reach of the occupant's feet, based on his or her size, etc.

Once the proper position has been determined by control circuit 150,signals are sent to motors 191, 192, and 193 to move the seat to thatposition, if such movement is necessary. That is, it is possible thatthe seat will be in the proper position so that movement of the seat isnot required. As such, the position of the motors 191,192,193 and/or theposition of the seat prior to occupancy by the occupant may be stored inmemory so that after occupancy by the occupant and determination of thedesired position of the seat, a comparison is made to determine whetherthe desired position of the seat deviates from the current position ofthe seat. If not, movement of the seat is not required. Otherwise, thesignals are sent by the control circuit 150 to the motors. In this case,control circuit 150 would encompass a seat controller.

Instead of adjusting the seat to position the driver in an optimumdriving position, or for use when adjusting the seat of a passenger, itis possible to perform the adjustment with a view toward optimizing theactuation or deployment of an occupant protection or restraint device.For example, after obtaining one or more morphological characteristicsof the occupant, the processor can analyze them and determine one ormore preferred positions of the seat, with the position of the seatbeing related to the position of the occupant, so that if the occupantprotection device is deployed, the occupant will be in an advantageousposition to be protected against injury by such deployment. In this casethen, the seat is adjusted based on the morphology of the occupant viewa view toward optimizing deployment of the occupant protection device.The processor is provided in a training or programming stage withpreferred seat positions for different morphologies of occupants.

Movement of the seat can take place either immediately upon the occupantsitting in the seat or immediately prior to a crash requiring deploymentof the occupant protection device. In the latter case, if ananticipatory sensing arrangement is used, the seat can be positionedimmediately prior to the impact, much in a similar manner as theheadrest is adjusted for a rear impact as disclosed in the '320 patentreferenced above.

If during some set time period after the seat has been positioned, theoperator changes these adjustments, the new positions of the seat arestored in association with an occupant height class in a second tablewithin control circuit 150. When the occupant again occupies the seatand his or her height has once again been determined, the controlcircuit 150 will find an entry in the second table which takesprecedence over the basic, original table and the seat returns to theadjusted position. When the occupant leaves the vehicle, or even whenthe engine is shut off and the door opened, the seat can be returned toa neutral position which provides for easy entry and exit from thevehicle.

The seat 110 also contains two control switch assemblies 180 and 182 formanually controlling the position of the seat 110 and headrest 111. Theseat control switches 180 permit the occupant to adjust the position ofthe seat if he or she is dissatisfied with the position selected by thealgorithm. The headrest control switches 182 permit the occupant toadjust the position of the headrest in the event that the calculatedposition is uncomfortably close to or far from the occupant's head. Awoman with a large hairdo might find that the headrest automaticallyadjusts so as to contact her hairdo. This adjustment she might findannoying and could then position the headrest further from her head. Forthose vehicles which have a seat memory system for associating the seatposition with a particular occupant, which has been assumed above, theposition of the headrest relative to the occupant's head could also berecorded. Later, when the occupant enters the vehicle, and the seatautomatically adjusts to the recorded preference, the headrest willsimilarly automatically adjust (FIG. 17B).

The height of the occupant, although probably the best initialmorphological characteristic, may not be sufficient especially fordistinguishing one driver from another when they are approximately thesame height. A second characteristic, the occupant's weight, can also bereadily determined from sensors mounted within the seat in a variety ofways as shown in FIG. 9 which is a perspective view of the seat shown inFIG. 8 with a displacement or weight sensor 200 shown mounted onto theseat. Displacement sensor 200 is supported from supports 202 and 204. Ingeneral, displacement sensor 200, or another non-displacement sensor,measures a physical state of a component affected by the occupancy ofthe seat. An occupying item of the seat will cause a force to be exerteddownward and the magnitude of this force is representative of the weightof the occupying item. Thus, by measuring this force, information aboutthe weight of the occupying item can be obtained. A physical state maybe any force changed by the occupancy of the seat and which is reflectedin the component, e.g., strain of a component, compression of acomponent, tension of a component.

Referring now to FIG. 9A, which is a view of the apparatus of FIG. 9taken along line 9A-9A, seat 230 is constructed from a cushion or foamlayer 232 which is supported by a spring system 234 which is in contactand/or association with the displacement sensor 200. As shown,displacement sensor 200 is underneath the spring system 234 but thisrelative positioning is not a required feature of the invention. Thedisplacement sensor 200 comprises an elongate cable 205 retained at oneend by support 210 and a displacement sensor 220 situated at an oppositeend. This displacement sensor 220 can be any of a variety of suchdevices including, but not limited to, a linear rheostat, a linearvariable differential transformer (LVDT), a linear variable capacitor,or any other length measuring device. Alternately, as shown in FIG. 9C,the cable can be replaced with one or more springs 242 retained betweensupports 210 and the tension in the spring measured using a strain gage(conventional wire or foil or a SAW strain gage) or other forcemeasuring device 244 or the strain in the seat support structure can bemeasured by appropriately placing strain gages on one or more of theseat supports as described below. The strain gage or other forcemeasuring device could be arranged in association with the spring system234 and could measure the deflection of the bottom surface of thecushion or foam layer 232.

When a SAW strain gage 244 is used as part of weight sensor 200, aninterrogator 246 could be placed on the vehicle to enable wirelesscommunication and/or power transfer to the SAW strain gage 244. As such,when it is desired to obtain the force being applied by the occupyingitem on the seat, the interrogator 246 sends a radio signal to the SAWstrain gage causing it to transmit a return signal with the measuredstrain of the spring 242. Interrogator 246 is coupled to the processorused to determine the control of the vehicle component.

As shown in FIG. 9D, one or more SAW strain gages 248 could also beplaced on the bottom surface of the cushion or foam layer 232 in orderto measure the deflection of the bottom surface which is representativeof the weight of the occupying item to the seat. An interrogator 249could also be used in this embodiment.

One seat design is illustrated in FIG. 9. Similar weight measurementsystems can be designed for other seat designs. Also, some products areavailable which can approximately measure weight based on pressuremeasurements made at or near the upper seat surface 236. It should benoted that the weight measured here will not be the entire weight of theoccupant since some of the occupant's weight will be supported by his orher feet which are resting on the floor or pedals. As noted above, theweight may also be measured by the weight sensor(s) 6 and 7 describedabove in the seated-state detecting unit.

As weight is placed on the seat surface 236, it is supported by spring234 which deflects downward causing cable 205 of the sensor 200 to beginto stretch axially. Using a LVDT as an example of length measuringdevice 220, the cable 205 pulls on rod 221 tending to remove rod 221from cylinder 223 (FIG. 9B). The movement of rod 221 out of cylinder 223is resisted by a spring 222 which returns the rod 221 into the cylinder223 when the weight is removed from the seat surface 236. The amountwhich the rod 221 is removed from the cylinder 223 is measured by theamount of coupling between the windings 226 and 227 of the transformeras is well understood by those skilled in the art. LVDT's arecommercially available devices. In this matter, the deflection of theseat can be measured which is a measurement of the weight on the seat.The exact relationship between weight and LVDT output is generallydetermined experimentally for this application.

SAW strain gages could also be used to determine the downward deflectionof the spring 234 and the deflection of the cable 205.

By use of a combination of weight and height, the driver of the vehiclecan in general be positively identified among the class of drivers whooperate the vehicle. Thus, when a particular driver first uses thevehicle, the seat will be automatically adjusted to the proper position.If the driver changes that position within a prescribed time period, thenew seat position will be stored in the second table for the particulardriver's height and weight. When the driver reenters the vehicle and hisor her height and weight are again measured, the seat will go to thelocation specified in the second table if one exists. Otherwise, thelocation specified in the first table will be used.

The system described above is based on the assumption that the occupantwill be satisfied with one seat position throughout an extended drivingtrip. Studies have shown that for extended travel periods that thecomfort of the driver can be improved through variations in the seatposition. This variability can be handled in several ways. For example,the amount and type of variation preferred by an occupant of theparticular morphology can be determined through case studies and focusgroups. If it is found, for example, that the 50 percentile male driverprefers the seat back angle to vary by 5 degrees sinusodially with aone-hour period, this can be programmed to the system. Since the systemknows the morphology of the driver it can decide from a lookup tablewhat is the best variability for the average driver of that morphology.The driver then can select from several preferred possibilities if, forexample, he or she wishes to have the seat back not move at all orfollow an excursion of 10 degrees over two hours.

This system provides an identification of the driver based on twomorphological characteristics which is adequate for most cases. Asadditional features of the vehicle interior identification andmonitoring system described in the above referenced patent applicationsare implemented, it will be possible to obtain additional morphologicalmeasurements of the driver which will provide even greater accuracy indriver identification. Two characteristics may not be sufficient to relyon for theft and security purposes, however, many other driverpreferences can still be added to seat position with this level ofoccupant recognition accuracy. These include the automatic selection ofa preferred radio station, vehicle temperature, steering wheel andsteering column position, etc.

One advantage of using only the height and weight is that it avoids thenecessity of the seat manufacturer from having to interact with theheadliner manufacturer, or other component suppliers, since all of themeasuring transducers are in the seat. This two characteristic system isgenerally sufficient to distinguish drivers that normally drive aparticular vehicle. This system costs little more than the memorysystems now in use and is passive, i.e., it does not require action onthe part of the occupant after his initial adjustment has been made.

Instead of measuring the height and weight of the occupant, it is alsopossible to measure a combination of any two morphologicalcharacteristics and during a training phase, derive a relationshipbetween the occupancy of the seat, e.g., adult occupant, child occupant,etc., and the data of the two morphological characteristic. Thisrelationship may be embodied within a neural network so that during use,by measuring the two morphological characteristics, the occupancy of theseat can be determined.

There are other methods of measuring the height of the driver such asplacing the transducers at other locations in the vehicle. Somealternatives are shown in FIG. 10 which is a side plan view wherein twoheight measuring sensors 320, 321 are shown, sensor 321 being mountedinto the headliner above the occupant's head and the other sensor 320being mounted onto the A-pillar. A sensor as used herein is thecombination of two transducers (a transmitter and a receiver) or onetransducer which can both transmit and receive. The headliner is thetrim which provides the interior surface to the roof of the vehicle andthe A-pillar is the roof-supporting member which is on either side ofthe windshield and on which the front doors are hinged. Thesetransducers may already be present because of other implementations ofthe vehicle interior identification and monitoring system described inthe above referenced patent applications. In this case, the use of bothtransducers provides a more accurate determination of location of thehead of the driver. Using transducer 321 alone, the exact position ofthe head is ambiguous since the transducer measures the distance to thehead regardless of what direction the head is. By knowing the distancefrom the head to transducer 320, the ambiguity is substantially reduced.This argument is of course dependent on the use of ultrasonictransducers. Optical transducers using CCD or CMOS arrays are nowbecoming price competitive and, as pointed out in the above referencedpatent applications, will be the technology of choice for interiorvehicle monitoring. A single CCD array of 160 by 160 pixels, forexample, coupled with the appropriate pattern recognition software, canbe used to form an image of the head of an occupant and accuratelylocate the head for the purposes of this invention.

FIG. 10 also illustrates a system where the seatbelt 330 has anadjustable upper anchorage point 331 which is automatically adjusted bya motor 332 to a location optimized based on the height of the occupant.The calculations for this feature and the appropriate control circuitrycan also be located in control module 301 or elsewhere if appropriate.

Many luxury automobiles today have the ability to control the angle ofthe seat back as well as a lumbar support. These additional motions ofthe seat can also be controlled by the seat adjustment system inaccordance with the invention. FIG. 11 is a view of the seat of FIG. 8showing motors 481 and 482 for changing the tilt of the seat back andthe lumbar support. Three motors 482 are used to adjust the lumbarsupport in this implementation. The same procedure is used for theseadditional motions as described for FIG. 8 above.

An initial table is provided based on the optimum positions for varioussegments of the population. For example, for some applications the tablemay contain a setting value for each five percentile of the populationfor each of the 6 possible seat motions, fore and aft, up and down,total seat tilt, seat back angle, lumbar position, and headrest positionfor a total of 120 table entries. The second table similarly wouldcontain the personal preference modified values of the 6 positionsdesired by a particular driver.

In FIG. 8, the ultrasonic transducers 120 and 121 were described as onebeing a transmitter and the other being a receiver. For someapplications, it is desirable to use both transducers as bothtransducers and receivers. Similarly, a third combination transmitterand receiver 122 may also be utilized as shown in FIG. 11. Thisarrangement permits many of the advantages of a phased array system tobe achieved.

The angular resolution of a transducer is proportional to the ratio ofthe wavelength to the diameter of the transmitter. Once threetransmitters and receivers are used, the approximate equivalent singletransmitter and receiver is one which has a diameter approximately equalto the shortest distance between any pair of transducers. In this case,the equivalent diameter is equal to the distance between transmitter 120or 121 and 122. This provides far greater resolution and, by controllingthe phase between signals sent by the transmitters, the direction of theequivalent ultrasonic beam can be controlled. Thus, the head of thedriver can be scanned with great accuracy and a map made of theoccupant's head. Using this technology plus an appropriate patternrecognition algorithm, such as a neural network, an accurate location ofthe driver's head can be found even when the driver's head is partiallyobscured by a hat, coat, or hairdo. This also provides at least oneother identification morphological characteristic which can be used tofurther identify the occupant, namely the diameter of the driver's head.

With knowledge of the weight of an occupant, additional improvements canbe made to automobile and truck seat designs. In particular, thestiffness of the seat can be adjusted so as to provide the same level ofcomfort for light and for heavy occupants. The damping of occupantmotions, which heretofore has been largely neglected, can also bereadily adjusted as shown on FIG. 12 which is a view of the seat of FIG.8 showing one of several possible arrangements for changing thestiffness and the damping of the seat. In the seat bottom 520, there isa container 515, the conventional foam and spring design has beenreplaced by an inflated rectangular container very much like an airmattress which contains a cylindrical inner container 518 which isfilled with an open cell urethane foam. An adjustable orifice 525connects the two container 515,518 so that air can flow in a controlledmanner therebetween. The amount of opening of orifice 525 is controlledby control circuit 150. A small air compressor 555 controls the pressurein container 515 under control of the control circuit 150. A pressuretransducer 560 monitors the pressure within container 515 and inputsthis information into control circuit 150.

The operation of the system is as follows. When an occupant sits on theseat, pressure initially builds up in the seat container 515 which givesan accurate measurement of the weight of the occupant. Control circuit150, using an algorithm and a microprocessor, then determines anappropriate stiffness for the seat and adds pressure to achieve thatstiffness. The pressure equalizes between the two containers 515 and 518through the flow of air through orifice 525. Control circuit 150 alsodetermines an appropriate damping for the occupant and adjusts theorifice 525 to achieve that damping. As the vehicle travels down theroad and the road roughness causes the seat to move up and down, theinertial force on the seat by the occupant causes the air pressure torise and fall in container 518 and also, but, much less so, in container515 since the occupant sits mainly above container 518 and container 515is much larger than container 518. The major deflection in the seattakes place first in container 518 which pressurizes and transfers airto container 515 through orifice 525. The size of the orifice openingdetermines the flow rate between the two containers and therefore thedamping of the motion of the occupant. Since this opening is controlledby control circuit 150, the amount of damping can thereby also becontrolled. Thus, in this simple structure, both the stiffness anddamping can be controlled to optimize the seat for a particular driver.If the driver does not like the settings made by control circuit 150, heor she can change them to provide a stiffer or softer ride.

The stiffness of a seat is the change in force divided by the change indeflection. This is important for many reasons, one of which is that itcontrols the natural vibration frequency of the seat occupantcombination. It is important that this be different from the frequencyof vibrations which are transmitted to the seat from the vehicle inorder to minimize the up and down motions of the occupant. The dampingis a force which opposes the motion of the occupant and which isdependent on the velocity of relative motion between the occupant andthe seat bottom. It thus removes energy and minimizes the oscillatorymotion of the occupant. These factors are especially important in truckswhere the vibratory motions of the driver's seat, and thus the driver,have caused many serious back injuries among truck drivers.

In FIG. 12, the airbag or bladder 515 which interacts with the occupantis shown with a single chamber. Bladder 515 can be composed of multiplechambers. The use of multiple chambers permits the weight distributionof the occupant to be determined if a separate pressure transducer isused in each cell of the bladder. Such a scheme gives the opportunity ofdetermining to some extent the position of the occupant on the seat orat least the position of the center of gravity of the occupant. Morethan four cells could be used.

In the description above, the air was use as the fluid to fill thebladder 515. In some cases, especially where damping and naturalfrequency control is not needed, another fluid such as a liquid or jellcould be used to fill the bladder.

In an automobile, there is an approximately fixed vertical distancebetween the optimum location of the occupant's eyes and the location ofthe pedals. The distance from a driver's eyes to his or her feet, on theother hand, is not the same for all people. An individual driver nowcompensates for this discrepancy by moving the seat and by changing theangle between his or hers legs and body. For both small and largedrivers, this discrepancy cannot be fully compensated for and as aresult, their eyes are not appropriately placed. A similar problemexists with the steering wheel. To help correct these problems, thepedals and steering column should be movable as illustrated in FIG. 13which is a plan view similar to that of FIG. 10 showing a driver anddriver seat with an automatically adjustable steering column and pedalsystem which is adjusted based on the morphology of the driver. In FIG.13, a motor 650 is connected to and controls the position of thesteering column and another motor 660 is connected to and controls theposition of the pedals. Both motors 650,660 are coupled to andcontrolled by control circuit 150 wherein now the basic table ofsettings includes values for both the pedals and steering columnlocations.

As various parts of the vehicle interior identification and monitoringsystem described in the above reference patent applications areimplemented, a variety of transmitting and receiving transducers will bepresent in the vehicle passenger compartment. If several of thesetransducers are ultrasonic transmitters and receivers, they can beoperated in a phased array manner, as described above for the headrest,to permit precise distance measurements and mapping of the components ofthe passenger compartment. This is illustrated in FIG. 14 which is aperspective view of the interior of the passenger compartment showing avariety of transmitters and receivers, 700-706 which can be used in aphased array system. In addition, information can be transmitted betweenthe transducers using coded signals in a ultrasonic network through thevehicle compartment airspace. If one of these sensors is an optical CCDor CMOS array, the location of the driver's eyes can be accuratelydetermined and the results sent to the seat ultrasonically. Obviously,many other possibilities exist.

The eye ellipse discussed above is illustrated at 810 in FIG. 15, whichis a view similar to FIG. 1, showing the occupant's eyes and the seatadjusted to place the eyes at a particular vertical position for properviewing through the windshield and rear view mirror. Many systems arenow under development to improve vehicle safety and driving ease. Forexample, night vision systems are being sold which project an enhancedimage of the road ahead of the vehicle onto the windshield in a“heads-up display”. The main problem with the systems now being sold isthat the projected image does not precisely overlap the image as seenthrough the windshield. This parallax causes confusion in the driver andcan only be corrected if the location of the driver's eyes is accuratelyknown. One method of solving this problem is to use the passive seatadjustment system described herein to place the occupant's eyes at theoptimum location as described above. Once this has been accomplished, inaddition to solving the parallax problem, the eyes are properly locatedwith respect to the rear view mirror 820 and little if any adjustment isrequired in order for the driver to have the proper view of what isbehind the vehicle. Currently, the problem is solved by projecting theheads-up display onto a different portion of the windshield, the bottom.

Although it has been described herein that the seat can be automaticallyadjusted to place the driver's eyes in the “eye-ellipse”, there are manymanual methods that can be implemented with feedback to the drivertelling him or her when his or her eyes are properly positioned. Atleast one of the inventions disclosed herein is not limited by the useof automatic methods.

Several systems are in development for determining the location of anoccupant and modifying the deployment of the airbag based of his or herposition. These systems are called “smart airbags”. The passive seatcontrol system in accordance with this invention can also be used forthis purpose as illustrated in FIG. 16. This figure is a view similar toFIG. 8 showing an inflated airbag 900 and an arrangement for controllingboth the flow of gas into and out of the airbag during a crash. Thedetermination is made based on height sensors 120, 121 and 122 locatedin the headrest, a weight sensor 200 in the seat and the location of theseat which is known by control circuit 150 (See, FIGS. 8, 9 and 9A).Other smart airbags systems rely only on the position of the occupantdetermined from various position sensors using ultrasonics or opticalsensors.

The weight sensor coupled with the height sensor and the occupant'svelocity relative to the vehicle, as determined by the occupant positionsensors, provides information as to the amount of energy which theairbag will need to absorb during the impact of the occupant with theairbag. This, along with the location of the occupant relative to theairbag, is then used to determine the amount of gas which is to beinjected into the airbag during deployment and the size of the exitorifices which control the rate of energy dissipation as the occupant isinteracting with the airbag during the crash. For example, if anoccupant is particularly heavy then it is desirable to increase theamount of gas, and thus the initial pressure, in the airbag toaccommodate the larger force which will be required to arrest therelative motion of the occupant. Also, the size of the exit orificesshould be reduced, since there will be a larger pressure tending toforce the gas out of the orifices, in order to prevent the bag frombottoming out before the occupant's relative velocity is arrested.Similarly, for a small occupant the initial pressure would be reducedand the size of the exit orifices increased. If, on the other hand, theoccupant is already close to the airbag then the amount of gas injectedinto the airbag needs to be reduced.

There are many ways of varying the amount of gas injected into theairbag some of which are covered in the patent literature and include,for example, inflators where the amount of gas generated and the rate ofgeneration is controllable. For example, in a particular hybrid inflatormanufactured by the Allied Signal Corporation, two pyrotechnic chargesare available to heat the stored gas in the inflator. Either or both ofthe pyrotechnic charges can be ignited and the timing between theignitions can be controlled to significantly vary the rate of gas flowto the airbag.

The flow of gas out of the airbag is traditionally done through fixeddiameter orifices placed in the bag fabric. Some attempts have been madeto provide a measure of control through such measures as blowout patchesapplied to the exterior of the airbag. Other systems were disclosed inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/541,464 filed Feb. 9, 1989, nowabandoned. FIG. 16A illustrates schematically an inflator 910 generatinggas to fill airbag 900 through control valve 920. The flow of gas out ofairbag 900 is controlled by exit control valve 930. The valve 930 can beimplemented in many different ways including, for example, a motoroperated valve located adjacent the inflator and in fluid communicationwith the airbag or a digital flow control valve as discussed above. Whencontrol circuit 150 determines the size and weight of the occupant, theseat position and the relative velocity of the occupant, it thendetermines the appropriate opening for the exit valve 930, which iscoupled to the control circuit 150. A signal is then sent from controlcircuit 150 to the motor controlling this valve which provides theproper opening.

In a like manner, other parameters can also be adjusted, such as thedirection of the airbag, by properly positioning the angle and locationof the steering wheel relative to the driver. If seatbelt pretensionersare used, the amount of tension in the seatbelt or the force at whichthe seatbelt spools out, for the case of force limiters, could also beadjusted based on the occupant morphological characteristics determinedby the system of this invention.

Once the morphology of the driver and the seat position is known, manyother objects in the vehicle can be automatically adjusted to conform tothe occupant. An automatically adjustable seat armrest, a cup holder,the cellular phone, or any other objects with which the driver interactscan be now moved to accommodate the driver. This is in addition to thepersonal preference items such as the radio station, temperature, etc.discussed above.

Once the system of this invention is implemented, additional featuresbecome possible such as a seat which automatically makes slightadjustments to help alleviate fatigue or to account for a change ofposition of the driver in the seat, or a seat which automaticallychanges position slightly based on the time of day. Many people preferto sit more upright when driving at night, for example. Other similarimprovements based on knowledge of the occupant morphology will nowbecome obvious to those skilled in the art.

In the above-described component adjustment systems and methods, one ofthe characteristics of the occupying item that may be measured is theweight. Several non-limiting examples of weight measuring apparatus willnow be described which may be used in the above-described systems andmethods.

In a first embodiment of a weight measuring apparatus shown in FIG. 18,four strain gage weight sensors or transducers are used, two beingillustrated at 1010 and 1011 on one side of a bracket of the supportstructure of the seat and the other two being at the same locations onanother bracket of the support (i.e., hidden on the correspondinglocations on the other side of the support). The support structure ofthe seat supports the seat on a substrate such as a floor pan of thevehicle. Each of the strain gage transducers 1010,1011 also containselectronic signal conditioning apparatus, e.g., amplifiers, analog todigital converters, filters etc., which is associated such that outputfrom the transducers is a digital signal. This electronic signal travelsfrom transducer 1010 to transducer 1011 through a wire 1020. Similarly,wire 1021 transmits the output from transducers 1010 and 1011 to thenext transducer in the sequence (one of the hidden transducers).Additionally, wire 1022 carries the output from these three transducerstoward the fourth transducer (the other hidden transducer) and wire 1023finally carries all four digital signals to an electronic control systemor module 1030. These signals from the transducers 1010,1011 are time orfrequency division multiplexed as is well known in the art. The seatposition is controlled by motors 1040 as described in U.S. Pat. No.5,179,576, which is incorporated herein by reference. Finally, the seatis bolted onto the support structure through bolts not shown whichattach the seat through holes 1050 in the brackets.

By placing the signal conditioning electronics, analog to digitalconverters, and other appropriate electronic circuitry adjacent thestrain gage element, the four transducers can be daisy chained orotherwise attach together and only a single wire is required to connectall of the transducers to the control module 1030 as well as provide thepower to run the transducers and their associated electronics.

The control system 1030, e.g., a microprocessor, is arranged to receivethe digital signals from the transducers 1010,1011 and determine theweight of the occupying item of the seat based thereon. In other words,the signals from the transducers 1010,1011 are processed by the controlsystem 1030 to provide an indication of the weight of the occupying itemof the seat, i.e., the force exerted by the occupying item on the seatsupport structure.

A typical manually controlled seat structure is illustrated in FIG. 19and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,285,545. The seat 1056 (only the frameof which is shown) is attached to a pair of slide mechanisms 1058 in therear thereof through support members such as rectangular tubularstructures 1060 angled between the seat 1056 and the slide mechanisms1058. The front of the seat 1056 is attached to the vehicle (moreparticularly to the floor pan) through another support member such as aslide member 1062, which is engaged with a housing 1064. Slidemechanisms 1058, support members 1060, slide member 1062 and housing1064 constitute the support structure for mounting the seat on asubstrate, i.e., the floor pan. Strain gage transducers are located forthis implementation at 1065 and 1066, strain gage transducer 1065 beingmounted on each tubular structure 1060 (only one of which is shown) andstrain gage transducer 1066 being mounted on slide member 1062. When anoccupying item is situated on the seat cushion (not shown), each of thesupport members 1060 and 1062 are deformed or strained. This strain ismeasured by transducers 1065 and 1066, respectively, to enable adetermination of the weight of the item occupying the seat. Morespecifically, a control system or module or other compatible processingunit (not shown) is coupled to the strain gage transducers 1065,1066,e.g., via electrical wires (not shown), to receive the measured strainand utilize the measured strain to determine the weight of the occupyingitem of the seat. The determined weight, or the raw measured strain, maybe used to control a vehicular component such as the airbag.

Support members 1060 are substantially vertically oriented and arepreferably made of a sufficiently rigid, non-bending component.

FIG. 19A illustrates an alternate arrangement for the seat supportstructures wherein a gusset 1068 has been added to bridge the angle onthe support member 1060. Strain gage transducer 1069 is placed on thisgusset 1068. Since the gusset 1068 is not a supporting member, it can bemade considerably thinner than the seat support member 1060. As the seatis loaded by an occupying item, the seat support member 1060 will bend.Since the gusset 1068 is relatively weak, greater strain will occur inthe gusset 1068 than in the support member 1060. The existence of thisgreater strain permits more efficient use of the strain gage dynamicrange thus improving the accuracy of the weight measurement.

FIG. 19B illustrates a seat transverse support member 1070 of the seatshown in FIG. 19, which is situated below the base cushion and extendsbetween opposed lateral sides of the seat. This support member 1070 willbe directly loaded by the vehicle seat and thus will provide an averagemeasurement of the force exerted or weight of the occupying item. Thedeflection or strain in support member 1070 is measured by a strain gagetransducer 1072 mounted on the support member 1070 for this purpose. Insome applications, the support member 1070 will occupy the entire spacefore and aft below the seat cushion. Here it is shown as a relativelynarrow member. The strain gage transducer 1072 is coupled, e.g., via anelectrical wire (not shown), to a control module or other processingunit (not shown) which utilizes the measured strain to determine theweight of the occupying item of the seat.

In FIG. 19, the support members 1060 are shown as rectangular tubeshaving an end connected to the seat 1056 and an opposite end connectedto the slide mechanisms 1058. In the constructions shown in FIGS.20A-20C, the rectangular tubular structure has been replaced by acircular tube where only the lower portion of the support isillustrated. FIGS. 20A-20C show three alternate ways of improving theaccuracy of the strain gage system, i.e., the accuracy of themeasurements of strain by the strain gage transducers. Generally, areduction in the stiffness of the support member to which the straingage transducer is mounted will concentrate the force and therebyimprove the strain measurement. There are several means disclosed belowto reduce the stiffness of the support member. These means are notexclusive and other ways to reduce the stiffness of the support memberare included in the invention and the interpretation of the claims.

In each illustrated embodiment, the transducer is represented by 1065and the substantially vertically oriented support member correspondingto support member 1060 in FIG. 19 has been labeled 1060A. In FIG. 20A,the tube support member 1060A has been cut to thereby form two separatetubes having longitudinally opposed ends and an additional tube section1074 is connected, e.g., by welding, to end portions of the two tubes.In this manner, a more accurate tube section 1074 can be used to permita more accurate measurement of the strain by transducer 1065, which ismounted on tube section 1074.

In FIG. 20B, a small circumferential cut has been made in tube supportmember 1060A so that a region having a smaller circumference than aremaining portion of the tube support member 1060A is formed. This cutis used to control the diameter of the tube support member 1060A at thelocation where strain gage transducer 1065 is measuring the strain. Inother words, the strain gage transducer 1065 is placed at a portionwherein the diameter thereof is less than the diameter of remainingportions of the tube support member 1060A. The purpose of this cut is tocorrect for manufacturing variations in the diameter of the tube supportmember 1060A. The magnitude of the cut is selected so as to notsignificantly weaken the structural member but instead to control thediameter tolerance on the tube so that the strain from one vehicle toanother will be the same for a particular loading of the seat.

In FIG. 20C, a small hole 1078 is made in the tube support member 1060Aadjacent the transducer 1065 to compensate for manufacturing toleranceson the tube support member 1060A.

From this discussion, it can be seen that all three techniques have astheir primary purpose to provide increase the accuracy of the strain inthe support member corresponding to weight on the vehicle seat. Apreferred approach would be to control the manufacturing tolerances onthe support structure tubing so that the variation from vehicle tovehicle is minimized. For some applications where accurate measurementsof weight are desired, the seat structure will be designed to optimizethe ability to measure the strain in the support members and thereby tooptimize the measurement of the weight of the occupying item. Theinventions disclosed herein, therefore, are intended to cover the entireseat when the design of the seat is such as to be optimized for thepurpose of strain gage weight sensing and alternately for the seatstructure when it is so optimized.

Although strain measurement devices have been discussed above, pressuremeasurement systems can also be used in the seat support structure tomeasure the weight on the seat. Such a system is illustrated in FIG. 21.A general description of the operation of this apparatus is disclosed inU.S. Pat. No. 5,785,291, which is incorporated herein by reference. Inthat patent, the vehicle seat is attached to the slide mechanism bymeans of bolts 1084. Between the seat and the slide mechanism, ashock-absorbing washer has been used for each bolt. In the presentinvention, this shock-absorbing washer has been replaced by a sandwichconstruction consisting of two washers of shock absorbing material 1080with a pressure sensitive material 1082 sandwiched in between. A varietyof materials can be used for the pressure sensitive material 1082, whichgenerally work on either the capacitance or resistive change of thematerial as it is compressed. The wires from this material leading tothe electronic control system are not shown in this view. The pressuresensitive material is coupled to the control system, e.g., amicroprocessor, and provides the control system with an indication ofthe pressure applied by the seat on the slide mechanism which is relatedto the weight of the occupying item of the seat. Generally, material1082 is constructed with electrodes on the opposing faces such that asthe material is compressed, the spacing between the electrodes isdecreased. This spacing change thereby changes both the resistive andthe capacitance of the sandwich which can be measured and which is afunction of the compressive force on the material. Measurement of thechange in capacitance of the sandwich, i.e., two spaced apart conductivemembers, is obtained by any method known to those skilled in the art,e.g., connecting the electrodes in a circuit with a source ofalternating or direct current. The conductive members may be made of ametal. The use of such a pressure sensor is not limited to theillustrated embodiment wherein the shock absorbing material 1080 andpressure sensitive material 1082 are placed around bolt 1084. It is alsonot limited to the use or incorporation of shock absorbing material inthe implementation.

FIG. 21A shows a substitute construction for the bolt 1084 in FIG. 21and which construction is preferably arranged in connection with theseat and the adjustment slide mechanism. A bolt-like member, hereinafterreferred to as a stud 400, is threaded 402 on both ends with a portionremaining unthreaded between the ends. A SAW strain measuring deviceincluding a SAW strain gage 404 and antenna 406 is arranged on thecenter unthreaded section of the stud 400 and the stud 400 is attachedat its ends to the seat and the slide mechanism using appropriatethreaded nuts. Based on the particular geometry of the SAW device used,the stud 400 can result in as little as a 3 mm upward displacement ofthe seat compared to a normal bolt mounting system. No wires arerequired to attach the SAW device to the stud 400. The total length ofstud 400 may be as little as 1 inch. In operation, an interrogator 408transmits a radio frequency pulse at for example, 925 MHz which excitesthe antenna 406 associated with the SAW strain gage 404. After a delaycaused by the time required for the wave to travel the length of the SAWdevice, a modified wave is re-transmitted to the interrogator 408providing an indication of the strain and thus a representative value ofthe weight of an object occupying the seat. For a seat which is normallybolted to the slide mechanism with four bolts, at least four SAW strainmeasuring devices or sensors would be used. Each conventional bolt couldthus be replaced by a stud as described above. Since the individual SAWdevices are very small, multiple such devices can be placed on the studto provide multiple redundant measurements or to permit the stud to bearbitrarily located with at least one SAW device always within directview of the interrogator antenna.

To avoid potential problems with electromagnetic interference, the stud400 may be made of a non-metallic, possibly composite, material whichwould not likely cause or contribute to any possible electromagneticwave interference. The stud 400 could also be modified for use as anantenna.

With respect to the frequency of interrogation, if the seat isunoccupied then the frequency of interrogation can be substantiallyreduced in comparison to when the seat is occupied. For an occupiedseat, information as to the identity and/or category and position of anoccupying item of the seat can be obtained through the use of multipleweight sensors. For this reason, and due to the fact that duringpre-crash event the position of an occupying item of the seat may bechanging rapidly, interrogations as frequently as once every 10milliseconds or even faster can be desirable. This would also enable adistribution of the weight being applied to the seat being obtainedwhich provides an estimation of the position of the object occupying theseat. Using pattern recognition technology, e.g., a trained neuralnetwork, sensor fusion, fuzzy logic, etc., the identification of theobject can be ascertained based on the determined weight and/ordetermined weight distribution.

Although each of the SAW devices can be interrogated and/or poweredusing wireless means, in some cases, it may be desirable to supply powerto and or obtained information from such devices using wires.

In FIG. 22, which is a view of a seat attachment structure described inU.S. Pat. No. 5,531,503, where a more conventional strain gage load celldesign designated 1100 is utilized. One such load cell design 1100 isillustrated in FIG. 22A.

A cantilevered beam load cell design using a half bridge strain gagesystem 1110 is shown in FIG. 22A. Fixed resistors mounted within theelectronic package, which is not shown in this drawing, provide theremainder of the whetstone bridge system. The half bridge system isfrequently used for economic reasons and where some sacrifice inaccuracy is permissible. The load cell 110 includes a member on whichthe strain gage 1110 is situated. The strain gage 1100 includesstrain-measuring elements 1112 and 1114 arranged on the load cell. Thelongitudinal element 1112 measures the tensile strain in the beam whenit is loaded by the seat and its contents, not shown, which is attachedto end 1122 of bolt 1120. The load cell is mounted to the vehicle orother substrate using bolt 1130. Temperature compensation is achieved inthis system since the resistance change in strain elements 1112 and 1114will vary the same amount with temperature and thus the voltage acrossthe portions of the half bridge will remain the same. The strain gage1100 is coupled to a control system (e.g., a microprocessor—not shown)via wires 1124 and receives the measured tensile strain and determinesthe weight of an occupying item of the seat based thereon.

One problem with using a cantilevered load cell is that it imparts atorque to the member on which it is mounted. One preferred mountingmember on an automobile is the floor-pan which will support significantvertical loads but is poor at resisting torques since floor-pans aretypically about 1 mm (0.04 inches) thick. This problem can be overcomethrough the use of a simply supported load cell design designated 1200as shown in FIG. 22B.

In FIG. 22B, a full bridge strain gage system 1210 is used with all fourelements 1212,1214 mounted on the top of a beam 1205. Elements 1212 aremounted parallel to the beam 1205 and elements 1214 are mountedperpendicular to it. Since the maximum strain is in the middle of thebeam 1205, strain gage 1210 is mounted close to that location. The loadcell, shown generally as 1200, is supported by the floor pan, not shown,at supports 1230 that are formed by bending the beam 1205 downward atits ends. Fasteners 1220 fit through holes 1222 in the beam 1205 andserve to hold the load cell 1200 to the floor pan without puttingsignificant forces on the load cell 1200. Holes are provided in thefloor-pan for bolt 1240 and for fasteners 1220. Bolt 1240 is attached tothe load cell 1200 through hole 1250 of the beam 1205 which serves totransfer the force from the seat to the load cell 1200.

The electronics package is potted within hole 1262 using urethanepotting compound 1244 and includes signal conditioning circuits, amicroprocessor with integral ADCs 1280 and a flex circuit 1275 (FIG.22C). The flex circuit 1275 terminates at an electrical connector 1290for connection to other vehicle electronics, e.g., a control system. Thebeam 1205 is slightly tapered at location 1232 so that the strain isconstant in the strain gage.

Although thus far only beam type load cells have been described, othergeometries can also be used. One such geometry is a tubular type loadcell. Such a tubular load cell is shown generally at 1300 in FIG. 22Dand instead of an elongate beam, it includes a tube. It also comprises aplurality of strain sensing elements 1310 for measuring tensile andcompressive strains in the tube as well as other elements, not shown,which are placed perpendicular to the elements 1310 to provide fortemperature compensation. Temperature compensation is achieved in thismanner, as is well known to those skilled in the art of the use ofstrain gages in conjunction with a whetstone bridge circuit, sincetemperature changes will affect each of the strain gage elementsidentically and the total effect thus cancels out in the circuit. Thesame bolt 1340 can be used in this case for mounting the load cell tothe floor-pan and for attaching the seat to the load cell.

Another alternate load cell design shown generally in FIG. 22E as 1400makes use of a torsion bar 1410 and appropriately placed torsionalstrain sensing elements 1420. A torque is imparted to the bar 1410 bymeans of lever 1430 and bolt 1440 which attaches to the seat structurenot shown. Bolts 1450 attach the mounting blocks 1460 at ends of thetorsion bar 1410 to the vehicle floor-pan.

The load cells illustrated above are all preferably of the foil straingage type. Other types of strain gages exist which would work equallywhich include wire strain gages and strain gages made from silicon.Silicon strain gages have the advantage of having a much larger gagefactor and the disadvantage of greater temperature effects. For thehigh-volume implementation of this invention, silicon strain gages havean advantage in that the electronic circuitry (signal conditioning,ADCs, etc.) can be integrated with the strain gage for a low costpackage. Other strain gage materials and load cell designs may, ofcourse, be incorporated within the teachings of this invention. Inparticular, a surface acoustical wave (SAW) strain gage can be used inplace of conventional wire, foil or silicon strain gages and the strainmeasured either wirelessly or by a wire connection. For SAW straingages, the electronic signal conditioning can be associated directlywith the gage or remotely in an electronic control module as desired.For SAW strain gages, the problems discussed above with low signallevels requiring bridge structures and the methods for temperaturecompensation may not apply. Generally, SAW strain gages are moreaccurate that other technologies but may require a separate sensor tomeasure the temperature for temperature compensation depending on thematerial used. Materials that can be considered for SAW strain gages arequartz, lithium niobate, lead zirconate, lead titanate, zinc oxide,polyvinylidene fluoride and other piezoelectric materials.

Many seat designs have four attachment points for the seat structure toattach to the vehicle. Since the plane of attachment is determined bythree points, the potential exists for a significant uncertainty orerror to be introduced. This problem can be compounded by the method ofattachment of the seat to the vehicle. Some attachment methods usingbolts, for example, can introduce significant strain in the seatsupporting structure. Some compliance therefore must be introduced intothe seat structure to reduce these attachment induced stresses to aminimum. Too much compliance, on the other hand, can significantlyweaken the seat structure and thereby potentially cause a safety issue.This problem can be solved by rendering the compliance section of theseat structure highly nonlinear or significantly limiting the range ofthe compliance. One of the support members, for example, can be attachedto the top of the seat structure through the use of the pinned jointwherein the angular rotation of the joint is severely limited. Methodswill now be obvious to those skilled in the art to eliminate theattachment induced stress and strain in the structure which can causeinaccuracies in the strain measuring system.

In the examples illustrated above, strain measuring elements have beenshown at each of the support members. This of course is necessary if anaccurate measurement of the weight of the occupying item of the seat isto be determined. For this case, typically a single value is inputtedinto the neural network representing weight. Experiments have shown,however, for the four strain gage transducer system, that most of theweight and thus most of the strain occurs in the strain elements mountedon the rear seat support structural members. In fact, about 85 percentof the load is typically carried by the rear supports. Little accuracyis lost therefore if the forward strain measuring elements areeliminated. Similarly, for most cases, the two rear mounted supportstrain elements measure approximately the same strain. Thus, theinformation represented by the strain in one rear seat support issufficient to provide a reasonably accurate measurement of the weight ofthe occupying item of the seat.

If a system consisting of eight transducers is considered, fourultrasonic transducers and four weight transducers, and if costconsiderations require the choice of a smaller total number oftransducers, it is a question of which of the eight transducers shouldbe eliminated. Fortunately, the neural network technology provides atechnique for determining which of the eight transducers is mostimportant, which is next most important, etc. If the six most criticaltransducers are chosen, that is the six transducers which contain themost useful information as determined by the neural network, and aneural network can be trained using data from those six transducers andthe overall accuracy of the system can be determined. Experience hasdetermined, for example, that typically there is almost no loss inaccuracy by eliminating two of the eight transducers, that is two of thestrain gage weight sensors. A slight loss of accuracy occurs when one ofthe ultrasonic transducers is then eliminated.

This same technique can be used with the additional transducersdescribed above. A transducer space can be determined with perhapstwenty different transducers comprised of ultrasonic, optical,electromagnetic, motion, heartbeat, weight, seat track, seatbelt payout,seatback angle etc. transducers. The neural network can then be used inconjunction with a cost function to determine the cost of systemaccuracy. In this manner, the optimum combination of any system cost andaccuracy level can be determined.

In many situations where the four strain measuring weight sensors areapplied to the vehicle seat structure, the distribution of the weightamong the four strain gage sensors, for example, well very significantlydepending on the position of the seat in the vehicle and particularlythe fore and aft and secondarily the seatback angle position. Asignificant improvement to the accuracy of the strain gage weightsensors, particularly if less than four such sensors are used, canresult by using information from a seat track position and/or a seatbackangle sensor. In many vehicles, such sensors already exist and thereforethe incorporation of this information results in little additional costto the system and results in significant improvements in the accuracy ofthe weight sensors.

There have been attempts to use seat weight sensors to determine theload distribution of the occupying item and thereby reach a conclusionabout the state of seat occupancy. For example, if a forward facinghuman is out of position, the weight distribution on the seat will bedifferent than if the occupant is in position. Similarly a rear facingchild seat will have a different weight distribution than a forwardfacing child seat. This information is useful for determining the seatedstate of the occupying item under static or slowly changing conditions.For example, even when the vehicle is traveling on moderately roughroads, a long term averaging or filtering technique can be used todetermine the total weight and weight distribution of the occupyingitem. Thus, this information can be useful in differentiating between aforward facing and rear facing child seat.

It is much less useful however for the case of a forward facing human orforward facing child seat that becomes out of position during a crash.Panic braking prior to a crash, particularly on a rough road surface,will cause dramatic fluctuations in the output of the strain sensingelements. Filtering algorithms, which require a significant time sliceof data, will also not be particularly useful. A neural network or otherpattern recognition system, however, can be trained to recognize suchsituations and provide useful information to improve system accuracy.

Other dynamical techniques can also provide useful informationespecially if combined with data from the vehicle crash accelerometer.By studying the average weight over a few cycles, as measured by eachtransducer independently, a determination can be made that the weightdistribution is changing. Depending on the magnitude of the change adetermination can be made as to whether the occupant is being restrainedby a seatbelt. It a seatbelt restraint is not being used, the outputfrom the crash accelerometer can be used to accurately project theposition of the occupant during pre crash braking and eventually theimpact itself providing his or her initial position is known.

In this manner, a weight sensor with provides weight distributioninformation can provide useful information to improve the accuracy ofthe occupant position sensing system for dynamic out of positiondetermination. Even without the weight sensor information, the use ofthe vehicle crash sensor data in conjunction with any means ofdetermining the belted state of the occupant will dramatically improvethe dynamic determination of the position of a vehicle occupant.

Strain gage weight sensors can also be mounted in other locations suchas within a cavity within a seat cushion 2 as shown as 6′ in FIG. 1A anddescribed above. The strain gage can be mounted on a flexible diaphragmthat flexes and thereby strains the strain gage as the seat is loaded.In the example of FIG. 1A, a single chamber 5′, diaphragm and straingage 6′ is illustrated. A plurality of such chambers can be used toprovide a distribution of the load on the occupying item onto the seat.

FIG. 23 shows a flow chart of one manner in the arrangement and methodfor controlling a vehicle component in accordance with the inventionfunctions. A measurement of the morphology of the occupant 710 isperformed at 714, i.e., one or more morphological characteristics aremeasured in any of the ways described above. The position of the seat716 is obtained at 718 and both the measured morphologicalcharacteristic of the occupant 712 and the position of the seat 716 areforwarded to the control system 720. The control system considers theseparameters and determines the manner in which the component 722 shouldbe controlled or adjusted, and even whether any adjustment is necessary.

Preferably, seat adjustment means 724 are provided to enable automaticadjustment of the seat 716. If so, the current position of the seat 716is stored in memory means 726 (which may be a previously adjustedposition) and additional seat adjustment, if any, is determined by thecontrol system 720 to direct the seat adjustment means 724 to move theseat. The seat 716 may be moved alone, i.e., considered as thecomponent, or adjusted together with another component, i.e., consideredseparate from the component (represented by way of the dotted line inFIG. 23).

Although several preferred embodiments are illustrated and describedabove, there are other possible combinations using different sensorswhich measure either the same or different morphologicalcharacteristics, such as knee position, of an occupant to accomplish thesame or similar goals as those described herein.

It should be mentioned that the adjustment system may be used inconjunction with each vehicle seat. In this case, if a seat isdetermined to be unoccupied, then the processor means may be designed toadjust the seat for the benefit of other occupants, i.e., if a frontpassenger side seat is unoccupied but the rear passenger side seat isoccupied, then adjustment system might adjust the front seat for thebenefit of the rear-seated passenger, e.g., move the seat base forward.

Referring now to FIGS. 24-37, heads-up displays and inputs to suchdisplays will now be described.

A portion of the windshield, such as the lower left corner, can be usedto display the vehicle and surrounding vehicles or other objects as seenfrom above, for example, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,049,945. Thisdisplay can use pictures or icons, selected based on informationobtained about the vehicles or exterior objects, as appropriate. Inanother case, the condition of the road such as the presence, orlikelihood of black ice can be displayed on the windshield where itwould show on the road if the driver could see it, via a heads-updisplay (HUD). This would require a source of information that such acondition exists, however, here the concern is that it can be displayedwhatever the source of this or any other relevant information. When usedin conjunction with a navigation system, directions including pointingarrows or a path outline perhaps in color can be displayed to direct thedriver to his destination or to points of interest.

An occupant sensor permits the alignment of the object discovered by anight vision camera with the line of sight of the driver so that theobject will be placed on the display where the driver would have seen itif he were able. Of course, the same problem exists as with the glarecontrol system in that to do this job precisely a stereo night visioncamera is required. However, in most cases the error will be small if asingle camera is used.

Another option is to infer the location of the eyes of the driver, forexample, from the determined location of the head of the driver, and toadjust the HUD based on where the eyes of the driver are likely to belocated. Then, a manual fine tuning adjustment capability can beprovided.

Previously, HUDs have only been considered for the windshield. This neednot be so and the rear window can also be a location for a HUD displayto aid the driver in seeing approaching vehicles, for example.

Another method of using the display capabilities of any heads-up displayand in particular a plastic electronics display is to create anaugmented reality situation where the visor or windshield becomes thedisplay instead of a head-mounted display. Some applications include thedisplay of the road edges and lane markers onto either the windshield orvisor at the location that they would appear if the driver could seethem through the windshield. The word windshield when used herein willmean any partially transparent or sometimes transparent display deviceor surface that is imposed between the eyes of a vehicle occupant andwhich can serve as a glare blocker and/or as a display device unlessalternate devices are mentioned in the same sentence.

Other applications include the pointing out of features in the scene todraw attention to a road where the driver should go, the location of abusiness or service establishment, a point of interest, or any othersuch object. Along with such an indication, a voice system within thevehicle can provide directions, give a description of the business orservice establishment, or give history or other information related to apint of interest etc. The display can also provide additional visualinformation such as a created view of a building that is planned for alocation, a view of a object of interest that used to be located at aparticular point, the location of underground utilities etc. or anythingthat might appear on a GIS map database or other database relating tothe location.

One particularly useful class of information relates to signage. Since adriver frequently misses seeing the speed limit sign, highway or roadname sign etc., all such information can be displayed on the windshieldin an inconspicuous manner along with the past five or so signs that thevehicle has passed and the forthcoming five or so signs alone with theirdistances. These signs can be displayed in any convenient language andcan even be spoken if desired by the vehicle operator.

The output from night vision camera systems can now also be displayed onthe display where it would be located if the driver could see the objectthrough the windshield. The problems of glare rendering such a displayunreadable are solved by the glare control system described elsewhereherein. In some cases where the glare is particularly bad making it verydifficult to see the roadway, the augmented reality roadway can bedisplayed over the glare blocking system providing the driver with aclear view of the road location. A radar or other collision avoidancesystem would also be required to show the driver the location of allother vehicles or other objects in the vicinity. Sometimes the actualobject can be displayed while in other cases, an icon (which isrepresentative of the object and determined based on informationobtained about the object) is all that is required and in fact providesa clearer representation of the object.

The augmented reality (AR) system can be controlled by a voicerecognition system or by other mouse, joystick, switch or similar inputdevice. Thus this AR system is displayed on a see through windshield andaugments the information normally seen by the occupant. This systemprovides the right information to the occupant at the right time to aidin the safe operation of the vehicle and the pleasure and utility of thetrip. The source of the information displayed may be resident within thevehicle or be retrieved from the Internet, a local transmitting station,a satellite, another vehicle, a cell phone tower or any otherappropriate system.

Plastic electronics are now becoming feasible and will permit anysurface in or on the vehicle to become a display surface. In particular,this technology is likely to be the basis of future HUDs.

Plastic electronics offer the possibility of turning any window into adisplay. This can be the windshield of an automobile or any window in avehicle or house or other building, for that matter. A storefront canbecome a changeable advertising display, for example, and the windows ofa house could be a display where emergency services warn people of acoming hurricane. For automotive and truck use, the windshield can nowfulfill all of the functions that previously have required a heads-updisplay (HUD). These include displays of any information that a drivermay want or need including the gages normally on the instrument panel,displaying the results of a night vision camera and, if an occupantsensor is present, an image of an object, or an icon representation, canbe displayed on the windshield where the driver would see it if it werevisible through the windshield as discussed in more detail elsewhereherein and in the commonly assigned cross referenced patents and patentapplications listed above. In fact, plastic electronics have the abilityto cover most or even the entire windshield area at low cost and withoutthe necessity of an expensive and difficult to mount projection system.In contrast, most HUDs are very limited in windshield coverage. Plasticelectronics also provide for a full color display, which is difficult toprovide with a HUD since the combiner in the HUD is usually tuned toreflect only a single color.

In addition to safety uses, turning one or more windows of a house orvehicle into a display can have “infotainment” and other uses. Forexample, a teenager may wish to display a message on the side windows toa passing vehicle such as “hi, can I have your phone number?” Thepassing vehicle can then display the phone number if the occupant ofthat vehicle wishes. A vehicle or a vehicle operator that isexperiencing problems can display “HELP” or some other appropriatemessage. The occupants of the back seat of a vehicle can use the sidewindow displays to play games or search the Internet, for example.Similarly, a special visor like display based of plastic electronics canbe rotated or pulled down from the ceiling for the same purposes. Thus,in a very cost effective manner, any or all of the windows or sun visorsof the vehicle (or house or building) can now become computer or TVdisplays and thus make use of previously unused surfaces for informationdisplay.

Plastic electronics is in an early stage of development but will have anenormous impact on the windows, sunroofs and sun visors of vehicles. Forexample, researchers at Philips Research Laboratories have made a64×64-pixel liquid crystal display (LCD) in which each pixel iscontrolled by a plastic transistor. Other researchers have used apolymer-dispersed liquid-crystal display (PDLCD) to demonstrate theirpolymeric transistor patterning. A PDLCD is a reflective display that,unlike most LCD technologies, is not based on polarization effects andso can be used to make a flexible display that could be pulled down likea shade, for example. In a PDLCD, light is either scattered bynonaligned molecules in liquid-crystal domains or the LC domains aretransparent because an electrical field aligns the molecules.

Pentacene (5A) and sexithiophene (6T) are currently the two most widelyused organic semiconductors. These are two conjugated molecules whosemeans of assembly in the solid state lead to highly orderly materials,including even the single crystal. The excellent transport properties ofthese molecules may be explained by the high degree of crystallinity ofthe thin films of these two semiconductor components.

The discovery of conducting polymers has become even more significant asthis class of materials has proven to be of great technological promise.Conducting polymers have been put to use in such niche applications aselectromagnetic shielding, antistatic coatings on photographic films,and windows with changeable optical properties. The undoped polymers,which are semiconducting and sometimes electroluminescent, have led toeven more exciting possibilities, such as transistors, light-emittingdiodes (LEDs), and photodetectors. The quantum efficiency (the ratio ofphotons out to electrons in) of the first polymer LEDs was about 0.01%,but subsequent work quickly raised it to about 1%. Polymer LEDs now haveefficiencies of above about 10%, and they can emit a variety of colors.The upper limit of efficiency was once thought to be about 25% but thislimitation has now been exceeded and improvements are expected tocontinue.

A screen based on PolyLEDs has advantages since it is lightweight andflexible. It can be rolled up or embedded into a windshield or otherwindow. With plastic chips the electronics driving the screen areintegrated into the screen itself. Some applications of the PolyLED areinformation screens of almost unlimited size, for example alongsidemotorways or at train stations. They now work continuously for about50,000 hours, which is more that the life of an automobile. Used as adisplay, PolyLEDs are much thinner than an LCD screen with backlight.

The most important benefit of the PolyLED is the high contrast and thehigh brightness with the result that they can be easily read in bothbright and dark environments, which is important for automotiveapplications. A PolyLED does not have the viewing angle problemassociates with LCDs. The light is transmitted in all directions withthe same intensity. Of particular importance is that PolyLEDs can beproduced in large quantities at a low price. The efficiency of currentplastic electronic devices depends somewhat on their electricalconductivity, which is currently considerably below metals. Withimproved ordering of the polymer chains, however, the conductivity isexpected to eventually exceed that of the best metals.

Plastic electronics can be made using solution based processing methods,such as spin-coating, casting, and printing. This fact can potentiallyreduce the fabrication cost and lead to large area reel-to-reelproduction. In particular, printing methods (particularly screenprinting) are especially desirable since the deposition and patterningsteps can be combined in one single step. Screen printing has beenwidely used in commercial printed circuit boards and was recentlyadopted by several research groups to print electrodes as well as theactive polymer layers for organic transistors and simple circuits.Inkjets and rubber stamps are alternative printing methods. A full-colorpolymer LED fabricated by ink-jet printing has been demonstrated using asolution of semiconducting polymer in a common solvent as the ink.

As reported in Science Observer, November-December, 1998 “PrintingPlastic Transistors” plastic transistors can be made transparent, sothat they could be used in display systems incorporated in anautomobile's windshield. The plastic allows these circuits to be bentalong the curvature of a windshield or around a package. For example,investigators at Philips Research in The Netherlands have developed adisposable identification tag that can be incorporated in the wrappingof a soft package.

Touch screens based on surface acoustic waves are well known in the art.The use of this technology for a touch pad for use with a heads-updisplay is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,126,583. The use of surfaceacoustic waves in either one or two dimensional applications has manyother possible uses such as for pinch protection on window and doorclosing systems, crush sensing crash sensors, occupant presence detectorand butt print measurement systems, generalized switches such as on thecircumference or center of the steering wheel, etc. Since these devicestypically require significantly more power than the micromachined SAWdevices discussed above, most of these applications will require a powerconnection. On the other hand, the output of these devices can gothrough a SAW micromachined device or, in some other manner, be attachedto an antenna and interrogated using a remote interrogator thuseliminating the need for a direct wire communication link. Otherwireless communications systems can also be used.

One example is to place a surface acoustic wave device on thecircumference of the steering wheel. Upon depressing a section of thisdevice, the SAW wave would be attenuated. The interrogator could notifythe acoustic wave device at one end of the device to launch an acousticwave and then monitor output from the antenna. Depending on the phase,time delay, and/or amplitude of the output wave, the interrogator wouldknow where the operator had depressed the steering wheel SAW switch andtherefore know the function desired by the operator.

A section of the passenger compartment of an automobile is showngenerally as 475 in FIG. 24. A driver 476 of the automobile sits on aseat 477 behind a steering wheel 478 that contains an airbag assembly479 with a touch pad data entry device, not shown. A heads-up display(HUD) 489 is positioned in connection with instrument panel 488 andreflects off of windshield 490. Three transmitter and/or receiverassemblies (transducers) 481, 482, 483 are positioned at various placesin the passenger compartment to determine the height and location of thehead of the driver relative to the heads-up display 489, or possiblyeven a measurement of the location of the head relative to any fixedpart of the vehicle (the heads-up display componentry being a fixed partof the vehicle). The determination of the location of the head of thedriver enables the location of the eyes of the driver to be inferred oralternatively, the transducers 481, 482, 483 may be used to determinethe location of the eyes of the driver.

Some situations where the location of the eyes of the driver cannot bemade include when the driver is wearing sunglasses. In this case, theoccupant sensor system including transducers 481, 482, 483 woulddetermine the location of the head and then infer that the driver islooking forward and determination the location of the driver's eyes,e.g., using known or predetermined relationships between the headlocation (e.g., the outline of the head or the distance between the topof the head and the ceiling of the passenger compartment) and thelocation of the eyes. A processor associated with the transducers 481,482, 483 could also be arranged to determine either the location of theeyes directly or inferred from a determination of the location of thehead as a function of the reliability of the determination. For example,if the determination of the location of the eyes directly is notdetermined to be reliable (e.g., multiple and consecutive determinationsresult in considerably different location determinations—which may beindicative of the driver wearing sunglasses), then the processordetermines the location of the head and then infers the location of theeyes.

Only three such transducers are illustrated in FIG. 24. In general, foursuch transducers are used for ultrasonic implementation, however, insome implementations as few as two and as many as six are used for aparticular vehicle seat. For optical implementations, a single cameracan be used.

FIG. 24 illustrates several of the possible locations of such occupantposition devices. For example, transmitter and receiver 481 emitsultrasonic or infrared waves which illuminate the head of the driver. Inthe case of ultrasonic transmitter and receivers (also referred toherein as transducers), the ultrasonic transducers are controlled toperiodically emit a burst of ultrasonic waves at typically 40-50kilohertz by the transmitter of the transducer and then the echo, orreflected signal, is detected by the receiver of the same transducer (ora receiver of a different device). An associated electronic circuitmeasures the time between the transmission and the reception of theultrasonic waves and thereby determines the distance in the Z directionfrom the transducer to the driver based on the velocity of sound. Whenan infrared system is used, the receiver is a CCD, CMOS or similardevice and measures the position of the occupant's head in the X and Ydirections. The X, Y and Z directions make up an orthogonal coordinatesystem with Z lying along the axis of the transducer and X and Y lyingin the plane of the front surface of the transducer.

It is contemplated that devices which use any part of theelectromagnetic spectrum can be used to locate the head of an occupantand herein a CCD will be defined as any device that is capable ofconverting electromagnetic energy of any frequency, including infrared,ultraviolet, visible, radar, and lower frequency radiation capacitivedevices, into an electrical signal having information concerning thelocation of an object within the passenger compartment of a vehicle. Insome applications, an electric field occupant sensing system can locatethe head of the driver. Once the location of the head of the driver isknown, it is possible to infer or derive the location of the eyes of thedriver using known techniques. For example, a table can be created ofthe most likely location of the eyes of a human occupant based on themorphology of the head, e.g., once the size of the head is known, thelocation of the eyes for a head that size relative to, for example, theoutline of the head (if the outline was obtained when determining theposition of the head), would be obtained from the table.

Moreover, any other system which is capable of locating the position ofthe eyes of the driver, or other passenger using a HUD may be used inthe invention. Such systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,653,462,5,829,782, 5,845,000, 5,822,707, 5,748,473, 5,835,613, 5,943,295, and5,848,802 among others. The systems for locating the eyes of theoccupant using the HUD 489 may be pre-existing systems in the vehiclewhich are used for other purposes of specifically designed for use withthe HUD control unit which controls the HUD 489 based on the locatedposition of the occupants' eyes.

The information from the transducers is then sent to an electronicscontrol module that determines if the eyes of the driver are positionedat or near to the eye ellipse for proper viewing of the HUD 489, i.e.,the image, text and/or symbols being projected into the field of theview of the driver by the HUD 489. If not, either the HUD 489 isadjusted or the position of the driver is adjusted to better positionthe eyes of the driver relative to the HUD 489, as described below.Although a driver system has been illustrated, a system for thepassenger would be identical for those installations where a passengerHUD is provided. Details of the operation of the occupant positionsystem can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,653,462, 5,829,782, 5,845,000,5,822,707, 5,748,473, 5,835,613, 5,943,295, and 5,848,802 among others.In some of these patents, an occupant sensor system which uses optics todetermine the location of the driver's eyes is disclosed. Although a HUDis disclosed herein, other displays are also applicable and thisinvention is not limited to HUD displays.

Thus, in one embodiment of the invention, the display of images, text,symbols, icons and any other material being projected into the field ofview of the vehicle occupant by the HUD 489 would be controlled based onthe location of the occupant's eyes as determined by any of the systemswhich are capable of providing this information. A processor would becoupled to the system which determines the location of the eyes of theoccupant and to the control unit of the HUD 489 and would direct the HUDcontrol unit to project the material at specific locations based on thedetermined location of the occupant's eyes. Different icons could beused to indicate the presence of different objects on the road orinformation to be conveyed to the occupant, with the particular iconbeing determined based on a map database of the lane being traveled bythe vehicle or by an exterior monitoring system which is capable ofidentifying objects exterior of the vehicle. Exterior monitoring systemswhich are capable of identifying objects using, for example, patternrecognition systems, are disclosed in the current assignee's patents.

In addition to determining the location of the eyes of the driver, hisor her mouth can also be simultaneously found. This permits, asdescribed below, the adjustment of a directional microphone tofacilitate accurate voice input to the system.

Electromagnetic or ultrasonic energy can be transmitted in three modesin determining the position of the head of an occupant, from which theposition of the occupant's eyes can be derived in one of several mannersknown to those skilled in the art to which the invention pertains. Inmost of the cases disclosed in the above-referenced patents, it isassumed that the energy will be transmitted in a broad diverging beamwhich interacts with a substantial portion of the occupant. This methodhas the disadvantage that it will reflect first off the nearest objectand, especially if that object is close to the transmitter, it may maskthe true position of the occupant. Generally, reflections from multiplepoints are used and this is a preferred ultrasonic implementation. Thesecond mode uses several narrow beams that are aimed in differentdirections toward the occupant from a position sufficiently away fromthe occupant that interference is unlikely. A single receptor can beused provided the beams are either cycled on at different times or areof different frequencies. However, multiple receptors are in generalused to eliminate the effects of signal blockage by newspapers etc.Another approach is to use a single beam emanating from a location thathas an unimpeded view of the occupant such as the windshield header orheadliner. If two spaced-apart CCD array receivers are used, the angleof the reflected beam can be determined and the location of the occupantcan be calculated. The third mode is to use a single beam in a manner sothat it scans back and forth and/or up and down, or in some otherpattern, across the occupant. In this manner, an image of the occupantcan be obtained using a single receptor and pattern recognition softwarecan be used to locate the head, chest, eyes and/or mouth of theoccupant. The beam approach is most applicable to electromagnetic energybut high frequency ultrasound can also be formed into a beam. Theabove-referenced patents provide a more complete description of thistechnology. One advantage of the beam technology is that it can bedetected even in the presence of bright sunlight at a particularfrequency.

Each of these methods of transmission or reception can be used, forexample, at any of the preferred mounting locations shown in FIG. 24.

Directional microphone 485 is mounted onto mirror assembly 484 or atanother convenient location. The sensitive direction of the microphone485 can also be controlled by the occupant head location system so that,for voice data input to the system, the microphone 485 is aimed in theapproximate direction of the mouth of the driver. A description ofvarious technologies that are used in constructing directionalmicrophones can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,528,426, 4,802,227,5,216,711, 5,381,473, 5,226,076, 5,526,433, 5,673,325, 5,692,060,5,703,957, 5,715,319, 5,825,898 and 5,848,172. A preferred design isdiscussed below.

FIG. 25 is a view of the front of a passenger compartment 493 of anautomobile with portions cut away and removed, having dual airbags 494,495 and an electronic control module 498 containing a HUD control systemcomprising various electronic circuit components shown generally as 499,500, 501, 502 and microprocessor 503. The exact selection of the circuitcomponents depends on the particular technology chosen and functionsperformed by the occupant sensor and HUDs 491,492. Wires 505 and 506lead from the control module 498 to the HUD projection units, not shown,which projects the information onto the HUDs 491 and 492 for the driverand passenger, respectively. Wire 497 connects a touch pad 496 locatedon the driver steering wheel to the control module 498. A similar wireand touch pad are provided for the passenger but are not illustrated inFIG. 25.

The microprocessor 503 may include a determining system for determiningthe location of the head of the driver and/or passenger for the purposeof adjusting the seat to position either occupant so that his or hereyes are in the eye ellipse or to adjust the HUD 491,492 for optimalviewing by the occupant, whether the driver or passenger. Thedetermining system would use information from the occupant positionsensors such as 481, 482, 483 or other information such as the positionof the vehicle seat and seat back. The particular technology used todetermine the location of an occupant and particularly of his or herhead is preferably based on pattern recognition techniques such asneural networks, combination neural networks or neural fuzzy systems,although other probabilistic, computational intelligence ordeterministic systems can be used, including, for example, patternrecognition techniques based on sensor fusion. When a neural network isused, the electronic circuit may comprise a neural network processor.Other components on the circuit include analog to digital converters,display driving circuits, etc.

FIG. 26A is a view of a heads-up display shown on a windshield but seenby a driver projected in front of the windshield and FIGS. 26B-26G showvarious representative interactive displays that can be projected ontothe heads-up display.

The heads-up display projection system 510 projects light through a lenssystem 511 through holographic combiner or screen 512, which alsoprovides columniation, which reflects the light into the eyes 515 ofdriver. The focal point of the display makes it appear that it islocated in front of the vehicle at 513. An alternate, preferred andequivalent technology that is now emerging is to use a display made fromorganic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Such a display can be sandwichedbetween the layers of glass that make up the windshield and does notrequire a projection system.

The informational content viewed by the driver at 513 can take on thevariety of different forms examples of which are shown in FIGS. 26B-26G.Many other displays and types of displays can be projected onto theholographic screen 512 in addition to those shown in FIGS. 26B-26G. Thedisplays that are generally on the instrument panel such as the fuel andoil levels, engine temperature, battery condition, the status ofseatbelts, doors, brakes, lights, high beams, and turn signals as wellas fuel economy, distance traveled, average speed, distance to empty,etc. can be optionally displayed. Other conventional HUD examplesinclude exception messages such as shut off engine, overheating, etc.

FIG. 26B illustrates the simplest of the types of displays that arecontemplated by this invention. In this display, the driver can selectbetween the telephone system (Tele), heating system (Heat), navigationsystem (Nav) or Internet (Intnt). This selection can be made by eitherpressing the appropriate section of the touch pad or by using a fingerto move the cursor to where it is pointing to one of the selections (seeFIG. 26B), then by tapping on the touch pad at any location or bypushing a dedicated button at the side of the touch pad, or at someother convenient location. Alternately, a voice or gesture input can beused to select among the four options. The switch system can be locatedon the steering wheel rim, or at some other convenient place, asdescribed above with reference to FIGS. 170A-171 of the '739application. The operation of the voice system will be described below.If the voice system is selected, then the cursor may automatically moveto the selection and a momentary highlighting of the selection can takeplace indicating to the operator what function was selected.

For this elementary application of the heads-up display, a choice of oneof the buttons may then result in a new display having additionaloptions. If the heating option is selected, for example, a new screenperhaps having four new buttons would appear. These buttons couldrepresent the desired temperature, desired fan level, the frontwindow-defrost and the rear window defrost. The temperature button couldbe divided into two halves one for increasing the temperature and theother half for decreasing the temperature. Similarly, the fan button canbe set so that one side increases the fan speed and the other sidedecreases it. Similar options can also be available for the defrostbutton. Once again, the operator could merely push at the proper pointon the touch pad or could move the cursor to the proper point and tapanywhere on the touch pad or press a pre-assigned button on the steeringwheel hub or rim, arm rest or other convenient location. When acontinuous function is provided, for example, the temperature of thevehicle, each tap could represent one degree increase or decrease of thetemperature.

A more advanced application is shown in FIG. 26C where the operator ispresented with a touch pad for dialing phone numbers after he or she hasselected the telephone (Tele) from the first screen. The operator caneither depress the numbers to the dial a phone number, in which case,the keypad or touch pad, or steering wheel rim, may be pre-textured toprovide a tactile feel for where the buttons are located, or the drivercan orally enunciated the numbers. In either case, as the numbers areselected they would appear in the top portion of the display. Once theoperator is satisfied that the number is correct, he or she can pushSEND to initiate the call. If the line is busy, a push of the STOPbutton stops the call and later a push of the REDIAL button canreinitiate the call. An automatic redial feature can also be included. Adirectory feature is also provided in this example permitting theoperator to dial a number by selecting or saying a rapid-dial codenumber or by a mode such as the first name of the person. Depressing thedirectory button, or by saying “directory”, would allow the directory toappear on the screen.

In congested traffic, bad weather, or other poor visibility conditions,a driver, especially in an unknown area, may fail to observe importantroad signs along the side of the road. Also, such signs may be soinfrequent that the driver may not remember what the speed limit is on aparticular road, for example. Additionally, emergency situations canarise where the driver should be alerted to the situation such as “icyroad ahead”, “accident ahead”, “construction zone ahead”, etc. Therehave been many proposals by the Intelligent Transportation Systemscommunity to provide signs on the sides of roads that automaticallytransmit information to a car equipped with the appropriate receptionequipment. In other cases, a vehicle which is equipped with a routeguidance system would have certain unchanging information available fromthe in-vehicle map database. When the driver missed reading a particularsign, the capability can exist for the driver to review previous signdisplays (see FIG. 26D). Similarly, when the driver wants to becomeaware of approaching signs, he or she can view the contents of signsahead provided that information is in the route guidance database withinthe vehicle. This system permits the vehicle operator to observe signswith much greater flexibility, and without concern of whether a truck isblocking the view of signs on a heads-up display that can be observedwithout interfering with the driver's ability to drive the vehicle. Thisin-vehicle signage system can get its information from transmissionsfrom road signs or from vehicle resident maps or even from an Internetconnection if the vehicle is equipped with a GPS system so that it knowsits location. If necessary, the signs can be translated into anyconvenient language.

FIG. 26E is a more sophisticated application of the system. In thiscase, the driver desires route guidance information which can beprovided in many forms. A map of the area where the driver is drivingappears on the heads-up or other display along with various options suchas zoom-in (+) and zoom-out (−). With the map at his ready view, thedriver can direct himself following the map and, if the vehicle has aGPS system or preferably a differential GPS system, he can watch hisprogress displayed on the map as he drives. When the driver needsassistance, he or she can activate the assistance button which willnotify an operator, such as an OnStar™ operator, and send the vehiclelocation as well as the map information to the operator. The operatorthen can have the capability of taking control of the map beingdisplayed to the driver and indicate on that map, the route that thedriver is to take to get to his or her desired destination. The operatorcould also have the capability of momentarily displaying pictures of keylandmarks that the driver should look for and additionally be able towarn the driver of any approaching turns, construction zones, etc. Thereare route guidance programs that can perform some of these functions andit is anticipated that in general, these programs would be used inconjunction with the heads-up display map system as taught herein. Fordrivers who prefer the assistance of an individual, the capabilitydescribed above can be provided.

All of the commands that are provided with the cursor movement andbuttons that would be entered through the touch pad can also be enteredas voice or gesture commands. In this case, the selections could behighlighted momentarily so that the operator has the choice of cancelingthe command before it is executed. Another mouse pad or voice or gestureinput can cause an e-mail to be read aloud to the vehicle occupant (seethe discussion of FIG. 26F below). The heads-up display thus givesvaluable feedback to the voice system again without necessitating thedriver to look away from the road.

If the Internet option was chosen, the vehicle operator would have avirtually unlimited number of choices as to what functions to perform ashe surfs the Internet. One example is shown in FIG. 26F where theoperator has been informed that he has e-mail. It is possible, forexample, to have as one of the interrupt display functions on theheads-up display at all times, an indicator that an e-mail has arrived.Thus, for example, if the driver was driving without the heads-updisplay activated, the receipt of the e-mail could cause activation ofthe heads-up display and a small message indicating to the driver thathe or she had received e-mail. This is an example of a situationinterrupt. Other such examples include the emergency in-vehicle signagedescribed above. Another vehicle resident system can cause the HUD orother display to be suspended if the vehicle is in a critical situationsuch as braking, lane changing etc. where the full attention of thedriver is required to minimize driver distraction.

Once the operator has selected e-mail as an option, he or she would thenhave the typical choices available on the Internet e-mail programs. Someof these options are shown on the display in FIG. 26F. There may beconcern that drivers should not be reading e-mail while driving avehicle. On the other hand, drivers have no problem reading signs asthey drive down the highway including large numbers of advertisements.If the e-mail is properly formatted so that it is easy to read, a normaldriver should have no problem reading e-mail any more than readingbillboards as he or she operates the vehicle in a safe manner. It couldalso be read aloud to the driver using text-to-speech software. He orshe can even respond to an e-mail message by orally dictating an answerinto a speech to text program.

In the future when vehicles are autonomously guided, a vehicle operatormay wish to watch his favorite television show or a movie while the tripis progressing. This is shown generally in FIG. 26G.

The above are just a few examples of the incredible capability thatbecomes available to the vehicle operator, and also to a vehiclepassenger, through the use of an interactive heads-up display along witha device to permit interaction with heads-up display. The interactivedevice can be a touch pad or switches as described above or a similardevice or a voice or gesture input system that is described below.

Although the touch pad described above primarily relates to a devicethat resides in the center of the steering wheel. This need not be thecase and a touch pad is generally part of a class of devices that relyon touch to transfer information to and from the vehicle and theoperator. These devices are generally called haptic devices and suchdevices can also provide feedback to the operator. Such devices can belocated at other convenient locations in association with the steeringwheel and can be in the form of general switches that derive theirfunction from the particular display that has been selected by theoperator. In general, for the purposes herein, all devices that can havechanging functions and generally work in conjunction with a display arecontemplated. One example would be a joystick located at a convenientplace on the steering wheel, for example, in the form of a small tipsuch as is commonly found of various laptop computers. Another exampleis a series of switches that reside on the steering wheel rim. Alsocontemplated is a voice input in conjunction with a HUD.

An audio feedback can be used along with or in place of a HUD display.As a person presses the switches on the steering wheel to dial a phonenumber, the audio feedback could announce the numbers that were dialed.

Many other capabilities and displays can be provided a few of which willnow be discussed. In-vehicle television reception was discussed abovewhich could come from either satellite transmissions or through theInternet. Similarly, video conferencing becomes a distinct possibilityin which case, a miniature camera would be added to the system. Routeguidance can be facilitated by various levels of photographs whichdepict local scenes as seen from the road. Additionally, tourist spotscan be highlighted with pictures that are nearby as the driver proceedsdown the highway. The driver could have the capability of choosingwhether or not he or she wishes to hear or see a description of upcomingtourist attractions.

Various functions that enhance vehicle safety can also make use of theheads-up display. These include, for example, images of or symbols oricons representing objects which occupy the blind spots which can besupplemented by warning messages should the driver attempt to changelanes when the blind spot is occupied. Many types of collision warningaids can be provided including images or icons which can be enhancedalong with projected trajectories of vehicles on a potential collisionpath with the current vehicle. Warnings can be displayed based onvehicle-mounted radar systems, for example, those which are used withintelligent cruise control systems, when the vehicle is approachinganother vehicle at too high a velocity. Additionally, when passiveinfrared sensors are available, images of or icons representing animalsthat may have strayed onto the highway in front of the vehicle can beprojected on the heads-up display along with warning messages.

In more sophisticated implementations of the system, as described above,the position of the eyes of the occupant will be known (determined usingan occupant position sensor) and therefore the image or icon of suchanimals or other objects which can be sensed by the vehicle's radar orinfrared sensors, can be projected in the proper size and at the properlocation on the heads-up display so that the object appears to thedriver approximately where it is located on the highway ahead. Thiscapability is difficult to accomplish without an accurate knowledge ofthe location of the eyes of the driver (as in methods and arrangementsin accordance with the invention). By including a system whichdetermines the location of the driver's eyes in combination with the HUDcontrol unit which adjusts the HUD based on the thus determined locationof the driver's eyes, significant improvements in the visualization ofprojected images by the HUD by the driver or other occupant of thevehicle are obtained.

In U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,000, and other related patents on occupantsensing, the detection of a drowsy or otherwise impaired orincapacitated driver is discussed. If such a system detects that thedriver may be in such a condition, the heads-up display can be used totest the reaction time of the driver by displaying a message such as“Touch the touch pad” or “sound the horn”. If the driver fails torespond within a predetermined time, a warning signal can be sounded andthe vehicle slowly brought to a stop with the hazard lights flashing.Additionally, the cellular phone or other telematics system can be usedto summon assistance.

There are a variety of other services that can be enhanced with theheads-up display coupled with the data input systems described herein.These include the ability using either steering wheel switches, thetouch pad or the voice or gesture input system to command a garage doorto be opened. Similarly, lights in a house can be commanded eitherorally, through gestures or through the touch pad or switches to beturned on or off as the driver approaches or leaves the house. When thedriver operates multiple computer systems, one at his or her house,another in the automobile, and perhaps a third at a vacation home oroffice, upon approaching one of these installations, the heads-updisplay can interrogate the computer at the new location, perhapsthrough Bluetooth™ or other wireless system to determine which computerhas the latest files and then automatically synchronize the files. Asystem of this type would be under a security system that could be basedon recognition of the driver's voiceprint, or other biometric measurefor example. A file transfer would be initiated then either orally, bygesture or through the touch pad or switches prior to the driver leavingthe vehicle that would synchronize the computer at the newly arrivedlocation with the computer in the vehicle. In this manner, as the drivertravels from location to location, wherever he or she visits as long asthe location has a compatible computer, the files on the computers canall be automatically synchronized.

There are many ways that the information entered into the touch pad orswitches can be transmitted to the in-vehicle control system orin-vehicle computer. All such methods including multiple wire, multiplexsignals on a single wire pair, infrared or radio frequency arecontemplated by this invention. Similarly, it is contemplated that thisinformation system will be part of a vehicle data bus that connects manydifferent vehicle systems into a single communication system.

In the discussion above, it has been assumed that the touch pad orswitches would be located on the steering wheel, at least for thedriver, and that the heads-up display would show the functions of thesteering wheel touch pad areas, which could be switches, for example.With the heads-up display and touch pad technology it is also nowpossible to put touch pads or appropriate switches at other locations inthe vehicle and still have their functions display on the heads-updisplay. For example, areas of the perimeter of steering wheel could bedesigned to act as touch pads or as switches and those switches can bedisplayed on the heads-up display and the functions of those switchescan be dynamically assigned. Therefore, for some applications, it wouldbe possible to have a few switches on the periphery of steering wheeland the functions of those switches could be changed depending upon thedisplay of the heads-up display and of course the switches themselvescan be used to change contents of that display. Through this type of asystem, the total number of switches in the vehicle can be dramaticallyreduced since a few switches can now perform many functions. Similarly,if for some reason one of the switches becomes inoperable, anotherswitch can be reassigned to execute the functions that were executed bythe inoperable switch. Furthermore, since the touch pad technology isrelatively simple and unobtrusive, practically any surface in thevehicle can be turned into a touch pad. In the extreme, many if not mostof the surfaces of the interior of the vehicle could become switches asa sort of active skin for the passenger compartment. In this manner, theoperator could choose at will where he would like the touch pad orswitches to be located and could assign different functions to thattouch pad or switch and thereby totally customize the interior of thepassenger compartment of the vehicle to the particular sensing needs ofthe individual. This could be especially useful for people withdisabilities.

The communication of the touch pad with the control systems in generalcan take place using wires. As mentioned above, however, othertechnologies such as wireless technologies using infrared or radiofrequency can also be used to transmit information from the touch pad orswitches to the control module (both the touch pad and control modulethereby including a wireless transmission/reception unit which is knownin the art). In the extreme, the touch pad or switches can in fact betotally passive devices that receive energy to operate from a radiofrequency or other power transmission method from an antenna within theautomobile. In this manner, touch pads or switches can be located atmany locations in the vehicle without necessitating wires. If a touchpad were energized for the armrest, for example, the armrest can have anantenna that operates very much like an RFID or SAW tag system asdescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,662,642. It would receive sufficient powerfrom the radio waves broadcast within the vehicle, or by some otherwireless method, to energize the circuits, charge a capacitor and powerthe transmission of a code represented by pressing the touch pad switchback to the control module. In some cases, a cable can be placed so thatit encircles the vehicle and used to activate many wireless inputdevices such as tire gages, occupant seat weight sensors, seat positionsensors, temperature sensors, switches etc. In the most advanced cases,the loop can even provide power to motors that run the door locks andseats, for example. In this case, an energy storage device such as arechargeable battery or ultra-capacitor could, in general, be associatedwith each device.

When wireless transmission technologies are used, many protocols existfor such information transmission systems with Bluetooth™ or Wi-Fi aspreferred examples. The transmission of information can be at a singlefrequency, in which case, it could be frequency modulated or amplitudemodulated, or it could be through a pulse system using very wide spreadspectrum technology or any other technology between these two extremes.

When multiple individuals are operators of the same vehicle, it may benecessary to have some kind of password or security system such that thevehicle computer system knows or recognizes the operator. The occupantsensing system, especially if it uses electromagnetic radiation near theoptical part of spectrum, can probably be taught to recognize theparticular operators of the vehicle. Alternately, a simple measurementof morphological characteristics such as weight, height, fingerprint,voiceprint and other such characteristics, could be used to identify theoperator. Alternately, the operator can orally enunciate the password oruse the touch pad or switches to enter a password. More conventionalsystems, such as a coded ignition key or a personal RFID card, couldserve the same purpose. By whatever means, once the occupant ispositively identified, then all of the normal features that accompany apersonal computer can become available such as bookmarks or favoritesfor operation of the Internet and personalized phonebooks, calendars,agendas etc. Then, by the computer synchronization system describedabove, all computers used by a particular individual can contain thesame data. Updating one has the effect of updating them all. One couldeven imagine that progressive hotels would have a system to offer theoption to synchronize a PC in a guest's room to the one in his or hervehicle.

One preferred heads-up projection system will now be described. Thissystem is partially described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,473,466 and 5,051,738.A schematic of a preferred small heads-up display projection system 510is shown in FIG. 27. A light source such as a high-power monochromaticcoherent laser is shown at 520. Output from this laser 520 is passedthrough a crystal 521 of a material having a high index of refractionsuch as the acoustic-optical material paratellurite. An ultrasonicmaterial 522 such as lithium niobate is attached to two sides of theparatellurite crystal, or alternately two in series crystals. When thelithium niobate 522 is caused to vibrate, the ultrasonic waves areintroduced into the paratellurite 521 causing the laser beam to bediffracted. With a properly chosen set of materials, the laser beam canbe caused to diffract by as much as about 3 to 4 degrees in twodimensions. The light from the paratellurite crystal 521 then enterslens 523 which expands the scanning angle to typically 10 degrees whereit is used to illuminate a 1 cm square garnet crystal 524. The garnetcrystal 524 contains the display to be projected onto the heads-updisplay as described in the aforementioned patents. The laser lightmodulated by the garnet crystal 524 now enters lens 525 where thescanning angle is increased to about 60 degrees. The resulting lighttravels to the windshield that contains a layer of holographic andcollimating material 512 that has the property that it totally reflectsthe monochromatic laser light while passing light of all otherfrequencies. The light thus reflects off the holographic material intothe eyes of the driver 515 (see FIG. 26A).

The intensity of light emitted by light source 520 can be changed bymanually adjustment using a brightness control knob, not shown, or canbe set automatically to maintain a fixed display contrast ratio betweenthe display brightness and the outside world brightness independent ofambient brightness. The automatic adjustment of the display contrastratio is accomplished by one or more ambient light sensors, not shown,whose output current is proportional to the ambient light intensity.Appropriate electronic circuitry is used to convert the sensor output tocontrol the light source 520. In addition, in some cases it may benecessary to control the amount of light passing through the combiner,or the windshield for that matter, to maintain the proper contrastratio. This can be accomplished through the use of electrochromic glassor a liquid crystal filter, both of which have the capability ofreducing the transmission of light through the windshield eithergenerally or at specific locations. Another technology that is similarto liquid crystals is “smart glass” manufactured by Frontier Industries.

Corrections should be made for optical aberrations resulting from thecomplex aspheric windshield curvature and to adjust for the differentdistances that the light rays travel from the projection system to thecombiner so that the observer sees a distortion free image. Methods andapparatus for accomplishing these functions are described in patentsmentioned above. Thus, a suitable optical assembly can be designed inview of the disclosure above and in accordance with conventionaltechniques by those having ordinary skill in the art.

Most of the heads-up display systems described in the prior art patentscan be used with the invention described herein. The particular heads-updisplay system illustrated in FIG. 27 has advantages when applied toautomobiles. First, the design has no moving parts such as rotatingmirrors, to create the laser scanning pattern. Second, it isconsiderably smaller and more compact than all other heads-up displaysystems making it particularly applicable for automobile instrumentpanel installation where space is at a premium. The garnet crystal 524and all other parts of the optics are not significantly affected by heatand therefore sunlight which happens to impinge on the garnet crystal524, for example, will not damage it. A filter (not shown) can be placedover the entire system to eliminate all light except that of the laserfrequency. The garnet crystal display system has a further advantagethat when the power is turned off, the display remains. Thus, when thepower is turned on the next time the vehicle is started, the displaywill be in the same state as it was when the vehicle was stopped and theignition turned off.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,439 states that conventional heads-up displays havebeen quite small relative to the roadway scene due to the limited spaceavailable for the required image source and projection mirrors. The useof the garnet crystal display as described herein permits a substantialincrease in the image size solving a major problem of previous designs.There are additional articles and patents that relate to the use ofOLEDs for display purposes. The use of OLEDs for automotive windshielddisplays is unique to the invention herein and contemplated for use withany and all vehicle windows.

An airbag-equipped steering wheel 528 containing a touch pad 529according to the teachings of this invention is shown in FIG. 28. Avariety of different touch pad technologies will now be described.

A touch pad based on the principle of reflection of ultrasonic waves isshown in FIG. 29 where once again the steering wheel is represented byreference numeral 528 and the touch pad in general is represented byreference numeral 529. In FIG. 29A, a cross-section of the touch pad isillustrated. The touch pad 529 comprises a semi-rigid material 530having acoustic cavities 531 and a film of PVDF 533 containingconductors, i.e., strips of conductive material with one set of strips532 running in one direction on one side of the film 533 and the otherset of strips 534 running in an orthogonal direction on the oppositeside of the film 533. Foam 535 is attached to the film 533. When avoltage difference is applied across the film 533 by applying a voltagedrop across an orthogonal pair of conductors, the area of the film 533where the conductors 532,534 cross is energized. If a 100 kHz signal isapplied across that piece of film, it is caused to vibrate at 100 kHzemitting ultrasound into the foam 535. If the film 533 is depressed by afinger, for example, the time of flight of the ultrasound in the foam535 changes, which also causes the impedance of the film 533 to changeat that location. This impedance change can be measured across the twoexciting terminals and the fact that the foam 535 was depressed canthereby be determined. A similar touch pad geometry is described in U.S.Pat. No. 4,964,302. The basic principles of operation of such a touchpad are described in that patent and therefore will not be repeatedhere. FIG. 29A also shows a portion of the film and conductive strips ofthe touch pad including the film 533 and conductive strips 532 and 534.The film 533 is optionally intentionally mechanically weakened at 536 tofacilitate opening during the deployment of the airbag.

Another touch pad design based on ultrasound in a tube as disclosed inU.S. Pat. No. 5,629,681 is shown generally at 529 in the center ofsteering wheel 528 in FIG. 30. In FIG. 30, the cover of the touch pad529 has been removed to permit a view of the serpentine tube 537. Thetube 537 is manufactured from rubber or another elastomeric material.The tube 537 typically has an internal diameter between about ⅛ andabout ¼ inches. Two ultrasonic transducers 538 and 539 are placed at theends of the tube 537 such as Murata 40 kHz transducer part numberMA40S4R/S. Periodically and alternately, each transducer 538,539 willsend a few cycles of ultrasound down the tube 537 to be received by theother transducer if the tube 537 is not blocked. If a driver places afinger on the touch pad 529 and depresses the cover sufficiently tobegin collapsing one or more of the tubes 537, the receiving transducerwill receive a degraded signal or no signal at all at the expected time.Similarly, the depression will cause a reflection of the ultrasonicwaves back to the sending transducer. By measuring the time of flight ofthe ultrasound to the depression and back, the location on the tube 537where the depression occurs can be determined. During the next halfcycle, the other transducer will attempt to send ultrasound to the firsttransducer. If there is a partial depression, a reduced signal will bereceived at the second transducer and if the tube 537 is collapsed, thenno sound will be heard by the second transducer. With this rather simplestructure, the fact that a small depression takes place anywhere in thetube labyrinth can be detected sufficiently to activate the heads-updisplay. Then, when the operator has chosen a function to be performedand depressed the cover of the touch pad sufficiently to substantiallyor completely close one or more tubes 537, indicating a selection of aparticular service, the service may be performed as described above.This particular implementation of the invention does not readily providefor control of a cursor on the heads-up display. For thisimplementation, therefore, only the simpler heads-up display's involvinga selection of different switching functions can be readily performed.

In FIGS. 31 and 31A, a force sensitive touch pad is illustratedgenerally at 529 and comprises a relatively rigid plate which has beenpre-scored at 540 so that it opens easily when the airbag is deployed.Load or force sensing pads 541 are provided at the four corners of thetouch pad 529 (FIG. 31A). Pressing on the touch pad 529 causes a forceto be exerted on the four load sensing pads 541 and by comparing themagnitudes of the force, the position and force of a finger on the touchpad 529 can be determined as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,066.

In FIG. 32, a thin capacitive mounted touch pad is illustrated and issimilar to the touch pad described in FIG. 3A of U.S. Pat. No.5,565,658. Steering wheel 528 contains the touch pad assembly 529. Thetouch pad assembly 529 comprises a ground conductor 547, a firstinsulating area 546, which can be in the form of a thin coating of paintor ink, a first conducting layer or member 545, which can be a screenprinted conducting ink, a second insulating area of 544 which also canbe in the form of a paint or ink and a second conducting layer or member543, which can be a screen printed ink. The two conducting layers 543,545 are actually strips of conducting material and are placed orthogonalto each other. Finally, there is an insulating overlay 542 which formsthe cover of the touch pad assembly 529. Although the assembly 529 isvery thin, typically measuring less than about 0.1 inches thick, onearea of the assembly at 548 is devoid of all of the layers except theconductive layer 545. In this manner, when the airbag (mounted under thetough pad 529) deploys, the assembly 529 will easily split (at 548)permitting the airbag cover to open and the airbag to be deployed. Theoperation of capacitive touch pads of this type is adequately describedin the above referenced patent and will not be repeated here.

FIGS. 33 and 33A show an alternate touch pad design similar to FIG. 12of U.S. Pat. No. 4,198,539. This touch pad design 529 comprises aninsulating area 549, a conductive area 550, a semi-conductive orpressure sensitive resistive layer 551, a thin conducting foil 552 andan insulating cover 553, which forms the cover of the airbag assembly.The operation of touch pads of this type is disclosed in the abovereferenced patent and will not be repeated here.

The interior of a passenger vehicle is shown generally at 560 in FIGS.34A and 34B. These figures illustrate two of the many alternatepositions for touch pads, in this case for the convenience of thepassenger. One touch pad 561 is shown mounted on the armrest within easyreach of the right hand of the passenger (FIG. 34A). The secondinstallation 562 is shown projected out from the instrument panel 563.When not in use, this assembly can be stowed in the instrument panel 563out of sight. When the passenger intends on using the touch pad 562, heor she will pull the touch pad assembly 562 by handle 564 bringing thetouch pad 562 toward him or her. For prolonged use of the touch pad 562,the passenger can remove the touch pad 562 from the cradle and even stowthe cradle back into the instrument panel 563. The touch pad 562 canthen be operated from the lap of the passenger. In this case, thecommunication of the touch pad 562 to the vehicle is done by eitherinfrared or radio frequency transmission or by some other convenientwireless method or with wires.

Referring now to FIG. 35, an automatic seat adjustment system is showngenerally at 570 with a movable headrest 572 and ultrasonic sensor 573and ultrasonic receiver 574 for measuring the height of the occupant ofthe seat as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,707. Motors 592, 593, and 594connected to the seat for moving the seat, a control circuit or module577 connected to the motors and a headrest actuation mechanism usingmotors 578 and 586, which may be servo-motors, are also illustrated. Theseat 571 and headrest 572 are shown in phantom. Vertical motion of theheadrest 572 is accomplished when a signal is sent from control module577 to servo motor 578 through a wire 575. Servo motor 578 rotates leadscrew 580 which engages with a threaded hole in member 581 causing it tomove up or down depending on the direction of rotation of the lead screw580. Headrest support rods 582 and 583 are attached to member 581 andcause the headrest 572 to translate up or down with member 581. In thismanner, the vertical position of the headrest can be controlled asdepicted by arrow A-A.

Wire 576 leads from control module 577 to servo motor 586 which rotateslead screw 588. Lead screw 588 engages with a threaded hole in shaft 589which is attached to supporting structures within the seat shown inphantom. The rotation of lead screw 588 rotates servo motor support 579,upon which servo-motor 578 is situated, which in turn rotates headrestsupport rods 582 and 583 in slots 584 and 585 in the seat 571. Rotationof the servo motor support 579 is facilitated by a rod 587 upon whichthe servo motor support 579 is positioned. In this manner, the headrest572 is caused to move in the fore and aft direction as depicted by arrowB-B. There are other designs which accomplish the same effect in movingthe headrest up and down and fore and aft.

The operation of the system is as follows. When an occupant is seated ona seat containing the headrest and control system described above, theultrasonic transmitter 573 emits ultrasonic energy which reflects off ofthe head of the occupant and is received by receiver 574. An electroniccircuit in control module 577 contains a microprocessor which determinesthe distance from the head of the occupant based on the time between thetransmission and reception of an ultrasonic pulse. The headrest 572moves up and down until it finds the top of the head and then thevertical position closest to the head of the occupant and then remainsat that position. Based on the time delay between transmission andreception of an ultrasonic pulse, the system can also determine thelongitudinal distance from the headrest to the occupant's head. Sincethe head may not be located precisely in line with the ultrasonicsensors, or the occupant may be wearing a hat, coat with a high collar,or may have a large hairdo, there may be some error in this longitudinalmeasurement.

When an occupant sits on seat 571, the headrest 572 moves to find thetop of the occupant's head as discussed above. This is accomplishedusing an algorithm and a microprocessor which is part of control circuit577. The headrest 572 then moves to the optimum location for rear impactprotection as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,694,320. Once the height ofthe occupant has been measured, another algorithm in the microprocessorin control circuit 577 compares the occupant's measured height with atable representing the population as a whole and from this table, theappropriate positions for the seat corresponding to the occupant'sheight is selected. For example, if the occupant measured 33 inches fromthe top of the seat bottom, this might correspond to a 85% human,depending on the particular seat and statistical tables of humanmeasurements.

Careful study of each particular vehicle model provides the data for thetable of the location of the seat to properly position the eyes of theoccupant within the “eye-ellipse”, the steering wheel within acomfortable reach of the occupant's hands and the pedals within acomfortable reach of the occupant's feet, based on his or her size, aswell as a good view of the HUD.

Once the proper position has been determined by control circuit 577,signals are sent to motors 592, 593, and 594 to move the seat to thatposition. The seat 571 also contains two control switch assemblies 590and 591 for manually controlling the position of the seat 571 andheadrest 572. The seat control switches 590 permits the occupant toadjust the position of the seat if he or she is dissatisfied with theposition selected by the algorithm.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,272 mentions that by the methods and apparatusthereof, the size of the driver's binocular or eye box is 13 cmhorizontal by 7 cm vertical. However, the chances of the eyes of thedriver being in such an area are small, therefore, for proper viewing,either the driver will need to be moved or the heads-up displayadjusted.

As an alternative to adjusting the seat to properly position the eyes ofthe driver or passenger with respect to the heads-up display, theheads-up display itself can be adjusted as shown in FIG. 36. Theheads-up display assembly 595 is adapted to rotate about its attachmentto an upper surface of the instrument panel 596 through any of a varietyof hinging or pivoting mechanisms. The bottom of the heads-up displayassembly 595 is attached to an actuator 597 by means of activating rod598 and an appropriate attachment fastener. Control module 486, inaddition to controlling the content of the heads-up display, alsocontains circuitry which adjusts the angle of projection of the heads-updisplay assembly 595 based on, for example, the determined location ofthe occupant's eyes. Other means for enabling displacement of theheads-up display assembly 595 are also within the scope of theinvention.

There are many cases in a vehicle where it is desirable to have a sensorcapable of receiving an information signal from a particular signalsource where the environment includes sources of interference signals atlocations different from that of the signal source. The view through aHUD is one example and another is use of a microphone for hands-freetelephoning or to issue commands to various vehicle systems.

If the exact characteristics of the interference are known, then afixed-weight filter can be used to suppress it. Such characteristics areusually not known since they may vary according to changes in theinterference sources, the background noise, acoustic environment,orientation of the microphone with respect to the driver's mouth, thetransmission paths from the signal source to the microphone, and manyother factors. Therefore, in order to suppress such interference, anadaptive system that can change its own parameters in response to achanging environment is needed. The concept of an adaptive filter isdiscussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,825,898.

The use of adaptive filters for reducing interference in a receivedsignal, as taught in the prior art, is known as adaptive noisecanceling. It is accomplished by sampling the noise independently of thesource signal and modifying the sampled noise to approximate the noisecomponent in the received signal using an adaptive filter. For animportant discussion on adaptive noise canceling, see B. Widrow et al.,Adaptive Noise Canceling: Principles and Applications, Proc. IEEE63:1692-1716, 1975.

In a typical configuration, a primary input is received by a microphonedirected to or oriented toward a desired signal source and a referenceinput is received independently by another microphone oriented in adifferent direction. The primary signal contains both a source componentand a noise component.

The independent microphone, due to its angular orientation, is lesssensitive to the source signal. The noise components in both microphonesare correlated and of similar magnitude since both originate from thesame noise source. Thus, a filter can be used to filter the referenceinput to generate a canceling signal approximating the noise component.The adaptive filter does this dynamically by generating an output signalthat is the difference between the primary input and the cancelingsignal, and by adjusting its filter weights to minimize the mean-squarevalue of the output signal. When the filter weights converge, the outputsignal effectively replicates the source signal substantially free ofthe noise component.

What is presented here, as part of this invention, is an alternative butsimilar approach to the adaptive filter that is particularly applicableto vehicles such as automobiles and trucks. A preferred approach takenhere will be to locate the mouth of the driver and physically aim thedirectional microphone toward the driver's mouth. Alternately, amulti-microphone technique known in the literature as “beam-forming”,which is related to phase array theory, can be used. Since the amount ofmotion required by the microphone is in general small, and for somevehicle applications it can be eliminated altogether, this is apreferred approach. The beam-forming microphone array can effectively bepointed in many directions without it being physically moved and thus itmay have applicability for some implementations.

The sources of the background noise in an automobile environment areknown and invariant over short time periods. For example wind blowing bythe edge of the windshield at high speed is known to cause substantialnoise within most vehicles. This noise is quite directional and variessignificantly depending on vehicle speed. Therefore the noisecancellation systems of U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,325 cannot be used in itssimplest form but the adaptive filter with varying coefficients thattake into account the directivity of sound can be used, as described inU.S. Pat. No. 5,825,898. That is, a microphone placed on an angle mayhear a substantially different background noise then the primarymicrophone because of the directionality of the sources of the noise.When the speaker is not speaking and the vehicle is traveling at aconstant velocity, these coefficients perhaps can be determined.Therefore, one approach is to characterize the speech of the speaker sothat it is known when he or she is speaking or not. Since most of thetime he or she will not be speaking, most of the time, the correlationcoefficients for an adaptive filter can be formed and the noise can besubstantially eliminated.

If two or more microphones have different directional responses, thenthe direction of sound can be determined by comparing the signals fromthe different microphones. Therefore, it is theoretically possible toeliminate all sound except that from a particular direction. If sixmicrophones are used on the six faces of a cube, it is theoreticallypossible to eliminate all sound except that which is coming from aparticular direction. This can now be accomplished in a very smallpackage using modern silicon microphones.

An alternate approach, and a preferred approach herein, is to use twomicrophones that are in line and separated by a known amount such asabout 6 inches. This is similar to but simpler than the approachdescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,319.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,319 describes a directional microphone arrayincluding a primary microphone and two or more secondary microphonesarranged in line and spaced predetermined distances from the primarymicrophone. Two or more secondary microphones are each frequencyfiltered with the response of each secondary microphone limited to apredetermined band of frequencies. The frequency filtered secondarymicrophone outputs are combined and inputted into a secondanalog-to-digital converter. Further aspects of this invention involvethe use of a ring of primary microphones which are used to steer thedirectionality of the microphones system toward a desired source ofsound. This patent is primarily concerned with developing a steerablearray of microphones that allow electronics to determine the directionof the preferred signal source and then to aim the microphones in thatgeneral direction. The microphone signals in this patent are linearlycombined together with complex weights selected to maximize the signalto noise ratio.

In contrast to U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,319, the microphone of the presentinvention merely subtracts all signals received by both the first andthe second microphones which are not at the precise calculated phaseindicating that the sound is coming from a different direction, ratherthan a direction in line with the microphones. Although in both casesthe microphones are placed on an axis, the method of processing theinformation is fundamentally different as described below.

If it is known that the microphone assembly is pointing at the desiredsource, then both microphones will receive the same signals with aslight delay. This delay will introduce a known phase shift at eachfrequency. All signals that do not have the expected phase shift canthen be eliminated resulting in the cancellation of all sound that doesnot come from the direction of the speaker.

For the purposes of telephoning and voice recognition commands, therange of frequencies considered can be reduced to approximately 800 Hzto 2000 Hz. This further serves to eliminate much of the noise createdby the sound of tires on the road and wind noise that occurs mainly atlower and higher frequencies. If further noise reduction is desired, astochastic approach based on a sampling of the noise when the occupantis not talking can be effective.

By looking at the phases of each of the frequencies, the direction ofthe sound at that frequency can be determined. The signals can then beprocessed to eliminate all sound that is not at the exact proper phaserelationship indicating that it comes from the desired particulardirection. With such a microphone arrangement, it does not in generalrequire more than two microphones to determine the radial direction ofthe sound source.

A directional microphone constructed in accordance with this inventionis shown generally at 600 in FIG. 37. Two microphones 601 and 602 aredisplaced an appropriate distance apart which can vary from about 0.5 toabout 9 inches depending on the application and the space available,with a preferred spacing of about 3 inches. The two microphones 601, 602are surrounded by acoustic transparent foam 603 and the assembly is heldby a holder 604. Wire 605 connects the microphones to the appropriateelectronic circuitry (not shown).

Although several preferred embodiments are illustrated and describedabove, there are possible combinations using other geometries, sensors,materials and different dimensions for the components that perform thesame functions. This invention is not limited to the above embodimentsand should be determined by the following claims. For example, theweight measuring apparatus and methods described above could be used inconjunction with a seat position sensor to provide for an accuratedetermination of the identification and location of the occupying itemof the seat. There are also numerous additional applications in additionto those described above. This invention is not limited to the aboveembodiments and should be determined by the following claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A vehicle with an optimized visualinformation presentation system for an occupant, comprising: a heads-updisplay assembly configured to display an image in a field of view of anoccupant of the vehicle; an occupant sensing system configured todetermine a location of the eyes of the occupant, said occupant sensingsystem being mounted on the vehicle; and a control system coupled tosaid heads-up display assembly and said occupant sensing system, whereinsaid control system is configured to displace at least a part of saidheads-up display assembly based on the determined location of the eyesof the occupant, and wherein said control system is further configuredto control the display of the image by said heads-up display assemblywhen the occupant is viewing a road in front of the vehicle to place arepresentation of an object exterior of the vehicle in the image in thesame position in which the object is situated relative to a line ofsight of the occupant, the line of sight being derived from thedetermined location of the eyes of the occupant, whereby the occupant isable to view an otherwise unviewable object in the object's actualposition exterior of the vehicle.
 2. The vehicle of claim 1, furthercomprising a night vision camera that determines the presence of objectsexterior of the vehicle whereby the occupant is unable to see objectsdue to darkness but views the representations of the same objects on theimage being displayed by said heads-up display assembly.
 3. The vehicleof claim 1, wherein said occupant sensing system comprises at least onewave-based transducer which transmits waves into an area in which theoccupant is likely situated and receives waves reflected or modified bythe occupant, and a processor for processing the received waves into anindication of the location of the eyes of the occupant.
 4. The vehicleof claim 1, wherein said control system is arranged to determineappropriate icons representative of objects exterior of the vehicle forplacement in the image being displayed by said heads-up displayassembly.
 5. The vehicle of claim 1, further comprising a vision systemthat locates objects exterior of the vehicle, said control system beingcoupled to said vision system to obtain information about the objectsexterior of the vehicle from said vision system and determineappropriate icons representative of such objects for placement in theimage being displayed by said heads-up display assembly.
 6. The vehicleof claim 5, wherein said control system is further configured to selectthe icons to place into the field of view of the occupant based on theinformation obtained about the objects.
 7. The vehicle of claim 1,wherein said control system is arranged to direct said heads-up displayassembly to place information about a condition of a lane the vehicle istravelling on into the field of view of the occupant based on thedetermined location of the eyes of the occupant.
 8. The vehicle of claim1, wherein said control system is arranged to direct said heads-updisplay assembly to place directional arrows or an outline of a path forfuture travel of the vehicle into the field of view of the occupantbased on the determined location of the eyes of the occupant.
 9. Thevehicle of claim 1, wherein said occupant sensing system determines thelocation of the occupant's eyes by determining the location of theoccupant's head and inferring the location of the occupant's eyes fromthe determined location of the occupant's head while assuming theoccupant is looking at the image.
 10. A method for providing informationto an occupant of a compartment of a vehicle, comprising: displaying,using a heads-up display assembly, an image in a field of view of theoccupant; determining the location of the eyes of the occupant using anoccupant sensing system mounted on the vehicle; displacing, using acontrol system coupled to the heads-up display assembly and the occupantsensing system, at least a part of the heads-up display assembly basedon the determined location of the eyes of the occupant; and controllingthe display of the image by the heads-up display assembly when theoccupant is viewing a road in front of the vehicle to place arepresentation of an object exterior of the vehicle in the image in thesame position in which the object is situated relative to a line ofsight of the occupant, the line of sight being derived from thedetermined location of the eyes of the occupant, whereby the occupant isable to view an otherwise unviewable object in the object's actualposition exterior of the vehicle.
 11. The method of claim 10, furthercomprising determining the presence of objects exterior of the vehicleusing a night vision camera whereby the occupant is unable to seeobjects due to darkness but views the representations of the sameobjects on the image being displayed by the heads-up display assembly.12. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of determining the locationof the eyes of the occupant comprises transmitting waves into an area inwhich the occupant is likely situated, receiving waves reflected ormodified by the occupant and processing the received waves into anindication of the location of the eyes of the occupant.
 13. The methodof claim 10, further comprising determining appropriate iconsrepresentative of objects exterior of the vehicle for placement in theimage being displayed by the heads-up display assembly.
 14. The methodof claim 10, further comprising: determining the location of objectsexterior of the vehicle; and determining appropriate iconsrepresentative of the objects for placement in the image being displayedby the heads-up display assembly.
 15. The method of claim 10, furthercomprising: obtaining information about objects exterior of the vehicle;and determining appropriate icons representative of the objects forplacement in the image being displayed by the heads-up display assembly.16. The method of claim 15, further comprising selecting the icon toplace into the field of view of the occupant based on the informationobtained about the objects.
 17. The method of claim 10, furthercomprising directing the heads-up display assembly to place informationabout a condition of a lane the vehicle is traveling on into the fieldof view of the occupant based on the determined location of the eyes ofthe occupant.
 18. The method of claim 10, further comprising directingthe heads-up display assembly to place directional arrows or an outlineof a path for future travel of the vehicle into the field of view of theoccupant based on the determined location of the head of the occupant.19. The method of claim 10, further comprising obtaining images, using acamera arranged in front of the occupant, from which the informationabout the occupant is obtained.
 20. The method of claim 10, wherein thestep of determining the location of the eyes of the occupant comprises:determining the location of the head of the occupant; and inferring thelocation of the occupant's eyes from the determined location of theoccupant's head, while assuming the occupant is looking at the image.